Hello!
I have a dial-up connection, and so every time Avast! tries to access the net on its own whim it can cost me money, and it’s also a waste of time and an annoyance.
I tried the RPCSS dll solution, but apparently on WindowsME it isn’t as effective as on other platforms, because Avast!/RPCSS still initiated a dial-up connection at startup.
Also, on WinME it’s much harder to rename the dll in the first place: the renaming needs to be done in Safe Mode, because otherwise the automatic System File Protection (SFP) restores a copy of the file within seconds after it is modified!
I thought I’d include some info from my firewall program in case this can assist anyone:
Connection origin :File Version : 4, 0, 234, 0
File Description : avast! antivirus service
File Path : C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashServ.exe
Process ID : FFFEC159 (Heximal) 4294885721 (Decimal)
local initiated
Protocol : ICMP
Local Address : 203.220.231.46
ICMP Type : 8 (Echo Request)
ICMP Code : 0
Remote Name : www.avast.com
Remote Address : 64.246.6.135
Ethernet packet details:
Ethernet II (Packet Length: 44)
Destination: 20-53-52-43-00-00
Source: 44-45-53-54-00-00
Type: IP (0x0800)
Internet Protocol
Version: 4
Header Length: 20 bytes
Flags:
.0… = Don’t fragment: Not set
…0. = More fragments: Not set
Fragment offset:0
Time to live: 64
Protocol: 0x1 (ICMP - Internet Control Message Protocol)
Header checksum: 0xb675 (Correct)
Source: 203.220.231.46
Destination: 64.246.6.135
Internet Control Message Protocol
Type: 8 (Echo Request)
Code: 0
Data (4 bytes)
Binary dump of the packet:
0000: 20 53 52 43 00 00 44 45 : 53 54 00 00 08 00 45 00 | SRC…DEST…E.
0010: 00 1C 0A A3 00 00 40 01 : 75 B6 CB DC E7 2E 40 F6 | …@.u…@.
0020: 06 87 08 00 EC FF 02 00 : 09 00 00 00 | …
I’m not totally sure about this, but I think that RPCSS is also responsible for the Scandisk disruptions which have been an issue for some users (see separate thread: scandisk).
Overall, RPCSS seems to me to be an outdated, annoying, and unreliable protocol.
Anyway, that’s all. For now…
Cheers.