Ive had it up to here...Please help with IT

[Youngjedi]

Hi All,

I use a VPN connection to get connected to work on the weekends. I have solved this problem before, but cannot for the life of me remember how. I have googled enough and I can't seem to fix it. Which means the solution is staring me in the face and I am blind.

The Environment:

Windows XP Pro SP2
VPN connection to Work
PC Anywhere 10.5 ( I mention this, Because I think it is the cause).

Problem:

When I search the internet..Pachitalk, google, Ebay, Or whatever, My computer automatically launch the VPN connection to work . It doesn't happen when I click a link, and it does happen when I click a link...in short, it could happen anytime. When it launched the window, it kills my Internet...understandable. I am getting tired of sitting there for 3.8 seconds before I realize what happened and killing the program.


I mention PC Anywhere before because I believe this ma be the cause...I have turned off all services for PC anywhere and it still happens. There is nothing in the Settings that is saying "establish connection when internet is present" It just happens randomly.

Can someone help?


believe it or not, it did not launch while I was typing this.

[Tulsa]

Is your VPN service in your startup and running in the background after a boot up? I use a VPN to connect remotely to my office as well but I have to invoke that service manually. I can connect to the internet without invoking it.

[Youngjedi]

It's not in my start up or services. I used to be able to manually invoke it also. not it seems to randomly come on (Only when my Firefox browser is running.)

[Tulsa]

There almost has to be an option within the VPN connection program itself that has set this feature to active then. Have you looked there for it? Check your task manager to see if it's running prior to calling the browser.

There's other startup locations besides the start up directory. You can start a program from the win.ini file, the system.ini file, directly called from the registry (probably the case here)

[Youngjedi]

Well, I have googled the problem down to a dll file in my registry that is installed with PCANYWHERE (Symantec). I followed the instructions to remove it and was successfull with removing it. I can still use PCANYWHERE...no problem there.

However, It did not fix my situation. My "Connect" box will still randomly appear asking me to connect to work. I don't have to click on anything...it just appears. I am going to focus more on Firefox and see if that is what is triggering the program.


It's not a service, nor is it in any boot.ini, startup..MSconfig that I can find.

[sailorpatp]

Just a quick thought... Is your email program checking for new mail on a schedule? Is the email program checking your work email? You might want to check the settings on that account if the answer to the first questions is yes.

[Youngjedi]

For safety, I use the WWW for checking my E-mail. i don't use and kind of outlook, or thunderbird program to bring E-mail into the PC. But I will check Outlook to see if it's doing something...Thanks.



OK, Done...I removed Outlook and Windows messenger from my PC. We'll just have to wait and see.