Office is Accessing Internet

C

CGB

I have a Windows 98 (not SE) OS running Office 97 Professional edition. I
have a shortcut bar on my screen for each module of Office (e.g. Word,
Access, etc.) On that bar I also have a shortcut for Explorer (the
directory lister.) I access the internet via my cable modem.

On occasion when I click on one of the shortcuts on the bar (usually Word,
or Explorer, but occasionally Excel except I don't run that module very
often) my Firewall (Zone Alert free version) pops up and says "Explorer.exe
is trying to access the internet" or MSOffice.exe is trying to access the
internet or a similar component. I don't think it should do this so I tell
the firewall not to allow it and everything seems to work OK. This just
started within the last several weeks although I've had the firewall in
place for 3 or 4 months.

Is any component of the shortcut bar supposed to be accessing the internet,
e.g. for updates, certificates, etc.? I can't imagine it and am concerned
that my machine may have a virus/trojan that has taken over. However I have
the most recent (update and run almost daily) upgrades/definitions for:
Zone Alert firewall
Norton Antivirus
AdAware
SpyBot Search and Destroy
Spy Sweeper
CWShredder
HighJack This

All scans with these programs are negative (I occasionally find some
cookies, data miners, etc. and rarely a CWS trojan, but remove all
immediately) but the occurrence still seems to continue on an intermittent
basis. I regularly dump my recylce bin, clear temporary internet files and
history, and delete cookies. I have not knowingly told any programs to
automatically check for updates/upgrades, don't run a task scheduler, or
any such thing. I see nothing in my startup list that would cause this.

Help/Advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Chet
 
E

Eric Lawrence [MSFT]

One likely explanation is that your Antivirus software is checking its
digital certificate against Verisigns certificate-revocation list on the
Internet.

Another possibility is that ZoneAlarm is simply giving a false positive;
I've seen reports that it will flag requests to 127.0.0.1 (your local
machine) as Internet traffic.


--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 

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