Why is Freecell Help attempting to connect out to the net?

[David Hollway [MVP]]

Hi All,

I have a quick question, more out of curiosity than any real urgent need.
I've just been playing Freecell, and accidentally hit the F1 key for Help,
which I never use (after all, everyone knows how to play Freecell, right?).
Immediately, my firewall (ZoneAlarm Pro) popped up a warning:
"Do you want to allow Entertainment Pack FreeCell Game to access the
Internet? Destination IP:127.0.0.1ort 3117 / Application: freecell.exe
Version 5.1.2600.0 (xpclient.010817-1148)"

Subsequent tests give the same warning, but the outbound port number
increments by a small (seemingly random) amount each time.

My system is Windows XP SP1, up to date on security patches, and to the best
of my knowledge it is entirely spyware and virus free.

I'm just curious - does anyone out there know why the Freecell app, of all
things, should be attempting an outbound connection? It's reported on my
system as a loopback (127.0.0.1), but that may be a result of the fact that
I have various sites blocked via my HOSTS file.
Has anyone else seen this behaviour?
I'd like to think there's an innocent explanation.. however, it's this kind
of thing that feeds the "Microsoft is spying on you" conspiracy theorists..!

Thanks!

-David Hollway.

 

[Eric]

Greetings David,

You are very right, however whatever the Entertainment
Packcell need to to make connection, it's not required to
access the FreeCell Help. The FreeCell Help tries to
make, which I have caught with Outpost two connections:
activex.microsoft.com and codecs.microsoft.com. I'm not
sure why this is tring to make a connection and I must
admit, it's a unsolved mystery.

____________________
Eric

 

[Eric]

Greetings David,

It happens on all the Microsoft games, not just FreeCell.


_______________
Eric

 

[David Hollway [MVP]]

Ah, the conspiracy deepens!
And, I've just found, it also happens with Calculator. Who'd have thought
it, eh? Spying on our every action through the most innocuous and seemingly
least Internet-related of apps!

Or, taking my tinfoil hat off for a moment, maybe it's just some aspect of
the Windows Help system that we're missing.
Anyone here who's more familiar with the XP Help system care to comment?

 

[Eric]

Greetings David,

The Help system doesn't require a Internet connection,
and dialup users who are disconnected (offline), opening
the Help systems doesn't make a connection as it seems it
isn't required. The only thing I can think of, it could
be a built-in hyperlink which is somehow linked to a
webserver which the firewall has to make that outgoing
connection.


_________________
Eric

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

127.0.0.1 is an internal loopback address. Freecell isn't going out on
the Internet, it is using TCP/IP as an internal pipe to communicate with
another process. IIRC, a lot of MS apps use 127.0.0.1 for Help
connections. My Kerio firewall watches application launches and the app
that Freecell connects to is a Help process.