Is it possible to detect what programs are accessing the internet and when? I live in a rural area and have a satellite connection to the internet. I am restricted to 425 MB a day, so what gets downloaded and when is crucial to my being able to effectively use my service. However, my service reports random downloads of massive amounts of data without warning or pattern. Every programmable application I have has been set to restrict downloading either to a manual process or to the periods known as "free" time (2-7am EST). Despite these precautions, things are downloading, never uploading, large amounts of data and I can't figure out what is doing it. Is there some kind of log on my system that would tell me what program accessed the internet and what was done or how much was downloaded or something useful like that? This hit home again this morning as I was reading my email. I hadn't browsed the internet or anything, and my system reports that 120 MB of data was downloaded. It's driving me nuts. It's not windows update, it's not anti-virus software updating (some of it may be Microsoft Security Essentials and Media Center because neither of those are programmable) however, it happens with sufficient frequency to know that even Microsoft doesn't upgrade products this often. It is something else entirely. In any event, I'm not looking for suggestions as to what "may" be causing it, I specifically want to know if there is a log of such activity or if there is an application available that would be able to do that. Any ideas on how to accomplish that would be appreciated. ---Mike ---Mike

You can try DU Meter http://www.hageltech.com/dumeter/about

1) First you should run an updated malware scan to make sure your system isn't infected with something. 2) In Windows 7, open Task Manager. Click the Performance tab and press the Resource Monitor button. Click the Network tab, and you should get a window of processes that are currently utilizing bandwidth on your workstation.