Something on your system wants to dial out or otherwise send or seek
information. If you are using Outlook Express or MS Outlook for your
e-mail, if you have them set to check for e-mail at specified intervals,
then you should disable that function. Many software applications have an
option to automatically check for updates so you might want to check your
applications for such options and turn it off. If you have Real Player
installed and did a default installation as opposed to a custom installation
wherein you could turn off the function, Real Player has an option not only
to check for updates but check for news and it can be the source of this
issue unless turned off.
If you have auto-update turned on in XP, that can cause this issue. Open
Control Panel, open System, go to the Automatic Update tab and turn off
automatic updates; note, if you elect to turn this feature off, you will
have to go to Windows Update periodically to check for updates for your
system.
