My Mouse wants to talk to Microsoft

[William Doyle]

I am a casual computer user but having been recently
infected by the blaster worm, I installed a firewall. Of
course there is a lot I don't know about internet
connections, ports, portscans and all.

So, today I received an alert that a program, c:\program
files\microsoft hardware\mouse\point32.exe (My mouse is a
Microsoft Optical Intellipoint)was trying to connect with
www.microsoft.com. The firewall said the connection was
medium risk so I blocked it with apparantly no ill
effects. So I'm curious. Why would my mouse software want
to establish a TCP connection with Microsoft.com?

 

[Kevin]

You should be aware that a lot of companies including
Microsoft do what they call an auto update either to their
software of hardware. You will also find that most Virus
software will do the same. So if you get a pop-up stating
that you mouse or software needs to check for updates you
should be okay to do so as long as you recognize the
software or hardware as part of you system.