Windows Explorer

[oidicle]

the explorer.exe in windows vista is attempting to connect to a remote computer with the name sqm.msn.com with remote port 80, I'm not sure if I should include the ip address of the remote computer, so I won't...

The issue is if I deny the request by explorer.exe, I won't be able to access the internet via any internet browsers, firefox, internet explorer and opera won't work although any download that I had started previously still carries on downloading(free download manager)...

I've been using the browsers with no issues before I had that prompt about windows explorer wanting to connect...

If I allow the request, explorer.exe keeps downloading "something"(I don't know what), it doesn't stop, when I'm monitoring my internet activity through an anti-virus software I use from ESET, I see that explorer.exe has downloaded 300MB+ and counting, it uses 90-95% of my download speed, I barely have enough speed to download my own stuff.

I'm at an loss here, I don't know what could be going on, a full virus scan shows nothing wrong, I've set the anti-virus to interactive filtering mode, so I control what connects to the internet.

I've disabled windows update service, I never update directly from Windows update, only as an addon to my vistaDVD iso image or installing them after downloading from various web sites which offer microsoft updates direct download... so I don't think it could be the issue here.

Is it common for explorer.exe under windows vista to do that? I've never experienced that under windows XP.

Edited October 4, 2008 by oidicle

[TechFind]

Could this be your problem ?:

---You are seeing that outbound connection because you have opted into the Customer Experience Improvement Program.

If you are participating in this program, data will be sent to Microsoft about how you use our products to help us better design features for future versions of Visual Studio.

If you no longer wish to participate, you can opt out of the program by going to Help>Customer Feedback Options...

Once you are opted out, no more data will be sent to Microsoft.

Customer Experience Improvement Program is a voluntary program, and users are opted out by default.---

Check this out too:http://www.microsoft.com/products/ceip/EN-US/default.mspx

[oidicle]

No, that's not it, I haven't opted for the customer experience improvement program from Micro-S***

[CoffeeFiend]

sqm.msn.com is the server for "service quality monitoring", i.e. the "microsoft customer experience improvement program".

As for what makes it do that, no idea. My explorer (on Vista too) does nothing like this.

It shouldn't really take much of your bandwidth, unless you're on dialup perhaps. If it takes that much, I'd be interested in a wireshark capture.

[oidicle]

Oh I see... I've uninstalled firefox browser and opera too(didn't know how to remve vista's internet explorer), restarted the PC and booted into Windows XP and replaced vista's explorer.exe with the one from the Installation DVD, restarted and went back to vista, I checked ESET Smart Security's personal firewall and there was no activity from explorer.exe, I probably was rash to uninstall the web browsers and replace the file almost at the same time, because now I can't really say if the problem was with one of the browsers or the file, I've re-installed the browsers and everything seems fine from the firewall's point of view.

I forgot to mention before that Safari web browser is the only one that worked when the others didn't, weird, I think.