For about a week (and never prior to that), NIS 2009 has logged two of my programs as "preparing to access the internet" shortly after each system startup. The two programs are atitapxx.exe (the ATI video card Control Panel), and stickies.exe (Stickies, a popular and reputable freeware "virtual post-it notes" program). Both of these are system startup programs and have system tray icons.
NIS actually created an auto firewall rule for Stickies soon after the first log entry appeared, allowing outbound connections -- which doesn't surprise me too much since Stickies has an optional networking feature. However, I have that feature disabled. I added atitapxx.exe to the application section of NIS manually, and since neither program should be connecting to the internet (neither has an "auto-check for updates function") I added alert-generating rules for internet connections from either. So far, and unsurprisingly, neither has actually tried to connect...nothing beyond that "preparing to connect" message that I get shortly after startup.
I seemed to recall that this behavior started when I turned on the Early Load feature, which is turned off in the default installation. The logs confirmed that memory. (I notice no difference in boot-up time when Early Load is enabled, BTW.) When I turn off Early Load, the "preparing to access the internet" messages stop appearing for these two programs. When I re-enable Early Load, the messages immediately restart.
Could this be a bug in NIS? On a related note, isn't Early Load intended to enhance the anti-virus component rather than the firewall? Either way, I highly doubt either program is infected (neither NIS nor Malwarebytes detect any infection) or attempting anything suspicious. (Interestingly, there was also an odd "preparing to access" message for one of my other three non-NIS startup, tray-icon programs after I initially enabled Early Load, but that one never recurred.)
Thanks in advance for any ideas or suggestions. I don't think it's a major issue, but it would be nice not to see those repeated entries in the log, and not to have to wonder whether this apparent oddity might suggest a problem with my NIS installation.