Greetings,

So I'm back up and running after a format and clean install; Win XP Pro, all up to date. As usual I'm hovering over the Task Manager and I happen to check out the Networking tab, and lo and behold, for some reason there's a "Local Area Connection 2" (always at 0% utilization, Link Speed 30 Mbps, Operational).
Sure enough, when I check out my Network Connections, there it is. Device name: Microsoft TV/Video Connection. Now, as I hate for things to be going on that I'm unfamiliar with (I've never seen this before...) I right-click and choose Disable. I get this message: "It is not possible to disable the connection at this time. This connection may be using one or more protocols that do not support Plug-andPlay, or it may have ben initiated by another user or the system account."

I'm the admin, and there are no other accounts (yes, even the Guest account is inactive). There's no way anything nefarious can be going on as I've been running BitDefender 9 Internet Security since day One. I can't find any information on this oddity so, I'm hoping someone out there can help me out. TIA

There's no way anything nefarious can be going on as I've been running BitDefender 9 Internet Security since day One.
Naive words :p
There's can always be something going on, like today's top story on Windows (In)Security
http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/12/29/0039242.shtml?tid=201&tid=172&tid=218

As for your problem - I'm not familiar with Windows (not any more), but have you tried to monitor the traffic of that connection, i.e., if something goes in and/or out.

Typically it's just a Local Area Connection and looks quite harmless from what I understand/get from your post,i.e.,
it might just be a reserved connection for your tv-card or something,
but I'm not sure if something potentially could not mask like a LAN these days.

Anyways, good luck and I hope someone more knowledgable in Windows networking will help you out with this one!

cheers!

Avatar,

Yeah, I know, with Windows, it certainly was naive.

I checked out that Slashdot article, and ran the command found therein, to no avail. I've been watching that 'connection', and there's literally no traffic. Still, it would be nice to figure this out. Thanks.

Just an update...

I've resarhed this more fully, and disovered that I'm not alone; apparently there are numerous people out there with this exact 'problem' (sic). From what I've gathered this connection comes about in one of 2 ways: firstly, if you have certain NVIDIA cards and update to the newest drivers; secondly, if you install some form of video camera (details are fuzzy here..). I've yet to troubleshoot this as I'd rather find a way to undo this 2nd connection without uninstalling my newest video drivers...