I use Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) for my home local area network. The main computer on the LAN is a Pentium III running Windows 98 SE. There are three other computers on the network, including an Acer Pentium 4, running Windows Me. Whenever the Acer Pentium 4 is turned on, it attempts to connect to the internet. The modem in the main computer starts dialling but of course it can’t connect as no username and password have been entered. I checked msconfig and there doesn’t appear to be anything in there out of the ordinary. Reformatting the computer with the Ghost image that Acer supply does not fix the problem either. Any ideas?

This problem is probably due to some application on your computer attempting to access the internet, most likely to obtain program updates or patches. The program attempting this operation may even be an application which is included in the Ghost image provided on the Acer recovery CD, so it is worth making the effort to find the problem application. The most scientific way of doing this is to disable all startup items in msconfig and then re-enable these one-by-one each time you startup, until the problem reappears. Also, check the ‘Task Scheduler’, which is an icon in the system tray (next to the clock). Double-click the icon to see if any items are scheduled to run. In particular, check for Critical Update Notification Manager, as this could be causing Windows to check for critical updates when it boots. If this is running as a scheduled task, disable it. If you are still having problems, open Internet Explorer and go to the ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Internet Options’ and click the ‘Connections’ tab. Select your internet connection and then enable ‘Never dial a connection’. Click OK. Reboot to check if the problem persists.

You may also wish to check the following settings in your registry. However, be careful when editing your registry as an incorrect edit can cause major problems! Go to the ‘Start’ menu and click ‘Run’. Type ‘regedit’ (without the quotes) and click OK. In the registry editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftOLE. Look in the right-hand pane. Ensure that ‘EnableDCOM’ is set to ‘Y’ and ‘EnableRemoteConnect’ is set to ‘N’. If either is incorrect, double click the entry to make the change. However, note down the original setting before making any changes in case you need to recover the original settings.

If all else fails, download the free version of ZoneAlarm from www.zonealarm.com. You should be using this anyway, as it is a very good (free) firewall. The advantage of this software is it will notify you whenever an application is attempting to access the internet, so you will be able to find out which application is attempting to dial-out. As an absolute final position, on the ICS host machine, open Internet Explorer and go to the ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Internet Options’ and click the ‘Connections’ tab. Select the internet connection and then enable ‘Never dial a connection’. Be aware that this will mean you will not be able to establish an internet connection by dialling through an ICS client. You will always need to physically sit in front of the ICS host and dial the connection from that machine.