>A mystery ... this will be of interest to Windows 8 users particularly...
>
>I've noticed some funny behavior going on since installing Windows 8 on a new laptop. This was a clean Windows 8 install. I have Comodo firewall running (latest release, 64 bit) and it is set to custom rule set and alerts - I want to know whenever any application wants to connect to the internet.
>
>So Comodo pops up and says that an application, TBO_WS_Downloader.exe, wants to connect to the internet. But this is one of my own programs and I didn't start it and I'm not running it. A review of task manager confirms that it is not running. Furthermore, this program (that I wrote) only connects to a single IP address - our own company web server and that is not the IP address Comodo reports this application wants to connect to ! So whats going on?
>
>Well I can think of these explanations:
>
>1) Comodo is making a mistake - the application is not running but it thinks it is.
>
>2) Another application, perhaps malware, is pretending to be this application and reporting itself with this name.
>
>3) Another application is trying to access the internet but Comodo is reading/reporting the application name incorrectly.
>
>So the next question is where is this application trying to connect to, IP address 213.199.148.155 ? Well that leads to Microsoft London Internet Data Center.
>
>What do you make of that?

Hmm, a bit of a poser.

I can only think of some SWAGs:

1. Could there be a time delay in Comodo's reporting? Is it possible your app was running but Comodo didn't generate the report until some time later, when it was no longer running?

2. Did you build your app using any 3rd party libraries or components that might "phone home"?

3. I don't know if it's present in Windows 8, but Windows 7 has a so-called "Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program" ( http://www.microsoft.com/products/ceip/EN-US/default.mspx ). Maybe it's enabled on your computer?