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wustat/wutrack.windows.com - What are they Used For?

Posted by Cliff on from the I-spy-bill's-secret-little-eye dept.

An Anonymous Coward asks: "On Windows XP today when i ran 'netstat', I noticed an http connection to wustat.windows.com. Several minutes later when i tried again I had an http connection to wutrack.windows.com. A search on google yields few results. Since windows.com is registered to microsoft, it makes me curious to know what wustat and wutrack stand for and what their purpose is. Is it Windows Usage Statistics/Tracking?" Has anyone else seen this on their XP systems?

6 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Re:There's really only one solution to this proble by Jester998 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Unfortunately, I get a 403 Forbidden when trying to access that site... not even an authentication dialog, it's just denied. Someone should reverse engineer the authentication protocol so that we can REALLY Slashdot it (I would assume that valid traffic consumes more bandwidth than just sending a 403 page...???).

  2. Does it happen with windows update disabled? by hawkstone · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just curious -- there are radio buttons under the Windows Update setting that let you choose from "whenver you feel like it, oh mighty XP" or "not on your life; I update myself". If you have it set to check it automatically own its own, it could very well do it on many of your random connections to the 'net, several times a day.

    If you disable it, does this still happen?

    In fact, is this reproducible enough that it happens whenver you run netstat?

  3. unsecure HTTP for Windows Update? by slashkitty · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This would be rather timely if the XP had the same problem that OS X has with an unsecured HTTP software update method.

    Has any one w/ XP snooped the software update?

    --
    -- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
  4. Break It and Find Out by yancey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Edit the C:\WINNT\System32\drivers\etc\hosts file so that the line reads thusly...

    127.0.0.1 localhost wutrack.windows.com wustat.windows.com ... and then see what breaks.. or doesn't.

    --
    Ouch! The truth hurts!
  5. Re:disable it. by Neck_of_the_Woods · · Score: 3, Interesting


    Also if you wondering the reg edit is:

    HKey_LOCAL_Machine\software\microsoft\windows\cu rr entversion\WindowsUpdate\

    Change the following:

    AUOptions - Data: (1)
    AUState - Data: (7)

    Enjoy,

    --
    Neck_of_the_Woods
    #/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
  6. Better Still by DrSkwid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    route it to a proper machine and log what comes out

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter