Looking further into another issue I posted about recently, I have discovered that NIS is creating an info entry in Full History (and Firewall Activities) that says "an instance of <whatever>.exe is preparing to access the internet" for ALL exe's! Doesn't matter if it's, say the volume increase silder ("an instance of C:\Windows\System32\Soundvol.exe is preparing to access the internet"), Windows Fax & Scan ("an instance of C:\Windows\System32\WFS.exe is preparing to access the internet"), Excel ("an instance of C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe is preparing to access the internet"), or ANY other exe that exists.
The same applies even if it is a silent, behind-the-scenes process, or subroutine of any other program. A "preparing to access the internet" entry is created as soon as the exe is called, even though in most cases that exe is not actually preparing to access the internet or any other network resources, and indeed may not even have the *ability* to do so.
I even went down the full list of 94 processes listed in Task Manager, and Full History had a "preparing to access the internet" entry for each one from today.
This can't be working properly, can it? I'm sure the firewall isn't supposed to automatically create such an entry for each and every exe that is called. I can see perhaps a "<whatever>.exe has STARTED" entry having some utility (though perhaps overkill for something that is called virtually nonstop), but not "preparing to access the internet."
I'm using Windows 7, NIS 21.5.0.19. I looked at my old XP machine (used sparingly), and it doesn't do anything like this. There are only the expected "preparing to access" entries, e.g. for frequently-online programs like Firefox and NIS, plus svchost.exe and a few other Windows "behind the scenes" processes. I have another Windows 7 computer that I won't be able to check for a week. But, as mentioned in the other thread, I did notice before that that computer WAS giving me odd and frequent "preparing to access the internet" entries for a frequently-called exe (a small subroutine of another program) that I know isn't even capable of accessing the internet or any other network resources.
Again, these "preparing to access the internet" entries for ALL exes that run show up only in Full (NOT "Recent") History and Firewall Activites, and each entry seems to stay there a day or two before disappearing from the history.
Any ideas? And can anyone (especially with Windows 7 and NIS 21.5.0.19) please confirm that the same is (or isn't) happening with your installation of NIS? At the risk of being repetitive, please be sure NOT to look in "Recent" History instead of "Full." These notices don't show up in Recent History, regardless of how recently the exe ran. Check Full History, but don't check any further back than, say 24 hours, since the older entries for "preparing to access" go away.