>>I've noticed recently that when I'm accessing a MSDN ONLINE article the little area at the bottom that shows "page load completion status" (I thought) periodically and frequently "restarts". By restart I mean it is blank, then starts showing green boxes moving rightward, fills up with green and blanks then starts all over again.
>>While all this goes on I've got the full page of interest and am only reading it.
>>
>>Why would it be doing this and is there some way to stop it??? It give me the creeps and makes me feel that stuff is being accessed on my PC.
>>
>>Thanks
>
>This reminds me of the UT message area, which checks every 5 minutes if there are new messages. It might be something similar, or it might not be.
>
>It should be relatively easy to check the source-code of the HTML page. Perhaps there is a timer to reload after a certain amount of seconds or minutes.
>
>You might also want to use a program that checks network traffic, to see what information is actually being sent. I think those are called "packet sniffers".

At least with the UT we understand WHY.
This MSDN activity has no apparent sensible reason unless it is to condition us for something in the future.

To me this is the kind of thing that should be prohibited from just happening - they ought to EXPLAIN the behaviour and why it is needed and provide some way to decline permission to do it.

I have the feeling that soon BillG will be coming through my CRT and having a beer with me.