It’s not supposed to do that.
I stumbled into my office and yanked the phone cable from the wall, then turned on the monitor and opened up the ZoneAlarm window, hoping that it would show me what application was trying to access the network. No such luck. A few seconds of squealing later, the modem gave up on the dead connection.
So I metaphorically spent a few resource points (in short supply, lately) to boost my OBS skill, and noticed as the AVG antivirus icon flipped from its “everything’s OK” version to its “something’s wrong” version. I opened up the AVG window, and saw that it had just tried unsuccessfully to run its scheduled daily update.
Well, that was a strong clue. I left the cable disconnected while I went back to bed for a few more minutes of resting.
Then I showered, and grabbed a quick breakfast to eat at the computer. I checked all of the usual system settings for the modem and for internet connections. They were still set on “don’t autoconnect”.
So I changed the time for the AVG’s scheduled update, and a few minutes later, it tried to dial out again, while I was watching. Bingo.
It seems that the new AVG version 8, which updated from 7.5 a couple of days ago, has some new abilities. Such as, for example, activating the modem despite the system settings which specify otherwise.
After some poking around in the AVG settings, I think I’ve found the new options which enable/disable that behaviour. I’m not impressed that it’s on by default. Frankly, I’m not impressed that it can override the system settings at all. Seems to me that that’s a serious security hole in the system. (Security holes in Windows? Who’d’a thunk it?)
The damned thing doesn’t even seem to have hacked into the modem properly. It keeps hanging up a few seconds after starting the connection, while my machine is still negotiating with the system at the other end for access.
I’ve spent too much of my day hanging around the general vicinity of my computer, waiting for the antivirus software to get around to doing its periodic update, so I can figure out what's going on. I've got a certain amount of tidying and dusting done, but I'd had other plans for the day.
