[funsec] Windows search goes out to the internet?

[Blanchard_Michael at emc.com]

I don't want Windows to go out to Microsoft everytime I attempt to perform a search.... Why does it do this???

 Start your sniffer or monitor your firewall log. 
On XP, Just start, search for files and folders. 
Why does your computer go to http://sa.windows.com//sasearch/balloon.xsl before you even search for anything? 

GET /sasearch/balloon.xsl HTTP/1.1 
If-Modified-Since: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 11:00:00 GMT 
User-Agent: SCAgent 
Host: sa.windows.com 


Michael P. Blanchard 
Antivirus / Security Engineer, CISSP, GCIH, MCSE, MCP+I 
Office of Information Security & Risk Management 
EMC ² Corporation 
4400 Computer Dr. 
Westboro, MA 01580 
Office: (508)898-7102      
Cell:     (508)958-2780 
Pager:  (877)552-3945 
email:  Blanchard_Michael at EMC.COM