DesktopX and Microsoft.com

from WinCustomize Forums
The AeroWeather widget attemps to connect to Microsoft.com. What possible reason does it have for this, considering that the actual weather data is downloaded from xoap.weather.com?
desktopx
3,401 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Just a guess, but that's probably DX just testing that you have a connection.

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Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Its the line that says "If System.InternetConnected Then". This function actually pings ms.com and if it gets a response it declares you have an internet connection. I used to have tons of problems with getting web objects to work behind a firewall/proxy and ended up commenting it out it a lot of widgets to get them to work. The problems seem to have cleared up as of late, not sure if its due to changes Stardock made or ones that my company made to the firewall/proxy.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Given the number of people paranoid about Microsoft, it would seem wiser to use something like Yahoo or Google to test for a connection.

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Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
All 3 scare me. How about using WC or Stardock?
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Yeah bichur's right. I trust wincustomize so I would set it there
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Maybe they want something a little more reliable.


Come to think of it, if you don't trust Stardock making a connection to Microsoft, why would you trust them at all?


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Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Just a guess, but that's probably DX just testing that you have a connection.


Sending a single ping to the default gateway or dns server would be a bit more elegant. Is this in DX or in the weather code everybody is using?
This is so ugly, that once you're on your corporate network, behind a proxy, and manage to set a systemwide proxy, as DX doesn't care about proxies, you still have to put microsoft.com into your local hosts file pointing to an always accessable webserver. I'm using our corporate intranet server for these purposes.