Do Dell PCs create a 'hidden network'?

Question

An acquaintance of mine had noticed some lag time in running a program on his PC running on one of his servers.  I told him that he should increase the memory in his machine, but that did not solve the problem.   Another friend of his, told him that it looks like his computer is actually trying to connect to a network.   Furthermore, he told me that Dell machines actually create a hidden network that needs to be disabled before Windows networking can work properly.  Once this hidden network was disabled, he was able to run this program fairly quickly.    Is there any truth to this?  I've never heard of such a thing and I've been in IT networking for more than 5 years.      Message Edited by lofishman on 12-07-2005 11:29 AM

Short_Bus · Answer

First I've heard of such a thing and we have LOTS of Dell servers.

speedstep · Answer

That statement is totally false. Hidden networks are created by virus and trojan programs not by dell.

Jbirk · Answer

There is no hidden network.

You can configure your network as you like. You can add/remove adapters, you can remove/install protocols, you can add/delete Network Clients, you can also add/delete Services.

In other words, Dell Computers are hardware that run Operating Systems that can run a wide variety of networking protocols, software, and applications. They are all 100% configureable by the person who buys them.

BBraxton · Answer

In a domain environment, beginning with Windows 2000 Professional we DISABLE the service called "Computer Browser" as well as three other services (on EVERY machine).

RIGHT-click "My Computer" and choose "Manage" and the "Services" and then click on the gears "Services"

Locate "Computer Browser" and RIGHT-click, click on STOP (the service) and after it stops, use the drop-down list to choose "Disable" and then apply the change.

I would do the same for "DNS client" and "IPsec" and (if not already done) "Messenger" services.

speedstep · Answer

This is bad advice though for a Peer to Peer or home network on a router.

lofishman · Answer

BBraxton, Do these adjustments prevent the sort of program delays that I described in my original post? Of course, this is when running the program in a domain network scenario. Thanks, M

Jbirk · Answer

Each of these items is a Windows Service. Each service performs a very specific function for a specific reason. For instance, there is one that helps with the translation of DNS to ips, there are several that make Windows Login work, there are a few that run IP Security ruls. Essentially, if you do not know what they do, you should not turn them off.

Computer Browser for instance has to do with building a list of computers on the network. It will help you see other computers when you visit Network Places or Network Neighborhood. If you turn this one off, you will likely find that Windows networking stops working.

Turning off services can be a good thing for security, but in these special scenarios, where you know what the service done and want the result of the service turned off.

For a home user, you are probably best off not turning off more than the Messenger and maybe the Alerter service.

-Jbirk

speedstep · Answer

Keep in mind that auto updates and windows time aka NTP and several other "services" reach out and touch microsoft on a regular basis.

XPAntispy turns these off.

The Security center service, Help and support, Automatic updates, etc.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Do Dell PCs create a "hidden network"?

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