How safe is going to microsoft.com? My hard drive goes nuts!

I’m learning about Windows and would like to go to Microsoft’s web site for the FAQs etc.
However, whenever I go there, my hard drive starts seeking wildly, and never stops as long as I am on the site. I don’t know what they’re up to and am worried they are skimming information, to try and sell me stuff or even contract me for something without my knowledge or permission per the latest Microsoft scam reported by CNN (I think day before yesterday).
Does anybody know what they are doing and whether I will regret visiting the site?

They`re checking for pirated copies of MS software. I would take a vacation this weekend. Make sure to lock all your door when you leave. Oh, and take your harddrive with you.

Unless they’ve been hit by a hacker, pretty safe. They’re so high profile and there are so many people with grudges against them that it wouldn’t make any sense to give their enemies more ammo over a website visit. Does this problem happen with every web browser you have available?

Wake up, [n]Napier**.
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Follow the white rabbit.
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Knock, knock.

>>I would take a vacation this weekend
>>Follow the white rabbit.

Very funny.

Look, it’s true, my hard drive goes nuts, allright? More computer users have learned to mistrust MS than to mistrust anybody else, now how did that happen?

JRootabega, I appreciate your answer. This phenomenon occurs when I use Netscape Navigator. I also have Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer, but I’ve been afraid to try that experiment; might as well toss them my credit cards and car keys, and roll over to expose my soft pink underbelley, eh? I don’t know much about browsers but wouldn’t mind trying others - any you suggest? Wouldn’t the logic about giving enimies more ammo apply to all the great villains of history? It didn’t stop Microsoft from various other sneaky tricks we kept hearing about in the news and courts.

Knowing M$, it’s probably them having “fun” with folks who use something other than IE. They’ve done it before.

I notice when I visit that site they have a note that says that they scan your HD ‘without sending any information to microsoft’

me thinks they give that info to someone else…after all they didn’t say they didn’t do that.

Um, is it possible that the site’s just bloated enough that it’s just forcing you into using virtual memory?

-lv

Napier - if you’re using NT/2000/XP/2003, you can use Task Manager to figure out what is pounding on your hard drive. Open up task manager, select the “Processes” tab, View | Select Columns and add I/O reads and I/O writes. Leave Task manager running, then open your browser and go to microsoft.com. Quickly (as quickly as you can, given your machine is crawling) toggle back to task manager, and click on “I/O reads” to sort by that column, or “I/O writes” to sort by that one. The top of list will show the program that is pounding on your hard drive. Post the results and we might be able to help you further.

DarrenS: >>Post the results and we might be able to help you further.

Ranked by I/O Reads the “Image Name” column says System, Navapsvc.exe, SVCHOST.EXE, SERVICES.EXE, CSRSS.EXE, LSASS.EXE (all with User Name “SYSTEM”), followed by ccApp.exe, EXPLORER.EXE (with my name as User Name), and on and on. I didn’t find I could cut and paste the table here. BTW I am on my home machine with the whisper-quiet hard drive at the moment; I will try the same thing on my work machine where it’s easy to tell this is happening and see what’s any different.

Well, Navapsvc.exe is part of Norton Antivirus; try disabling that temporarily and returning to Microsoft.com.

Also, quite possibly, it’s your OS trying to update itself (if you’re using Windows ME or XP). I can never find the option that controls when it does this, but it’s not part of Windows Update as it should be.

abby