What is this IP that always appears connected to my computer?
198.63.194.98
I’m running Vista. I went to Start > CMD > netstat -o
Netstat shows a foreign address of 198.63.194.98 connecting to my machine. I wanted to know what program on my machine was connecting to that foreign address.
Went to Microsoft’s site and installed the helpful utility, TCPView. TCPView gives more details than netstat. It gives the name of the PID (Process ID) that is accessing the web. For example, netstat tells me only that PID 4728 is accessing the web while TCPView tells me it’s Firefox accessing the web.
Using TCPView, I see what process is accessing this mysterious IP.
jusched.exe? This program is Sun’s Java Automatic Updater. Apparently this program is taking up memory in thousands, perhaps millions of machines across the world.
What is Java used for?
Java is a programming language and a platform. Examples of its use:
OpenOffice - the free office suite (like Microsoft Office – but free)
Web applications, applets, internet chat rooms…
But is it really necessary for the Java automatic update to run on our computers 24/7? Do you want this program constantly running on your machine?
Here is what I did on my Vista machine.
Control Panel >> Additional Options >> View 32-bit Control Panel Items
Double-clicked on the Java icon. Clicked on the Update tab.
Uncheck the box to update automatically.
OK, now that the Java updater is disabled, I wanted to have Vista itself perform the monthly Java update. To do this:
Go to the search bar and type “Task Scheduler”.
Click “Create Basic Task”. Give it a schedule of once a month to select a program.
Now my computer will automatically check for Java updates once per month without the need for jusched.exe to be running at all times. I set the scheduler to run 5 minutes later for its first run so I could see what happened.
Like clockwork, Vista ran the program and asked my permission if the Java updater could get online. That’s what I’m talking about. I allowed the program to run and a new update was in fact available.
Amazing… when I run the update program on a schedule, there is an update. Why didn’t the program that was running 24/7 on my computer already find this update? jusched.exe seems like a useless program when this is handled so much more efficiently with a Vista scheduled task.
Not Done Yet
OK, now after the Java update, I get a message saying that they are going to automatically look for updates again. Hey, I just went through a bunch of steps to prevent that.
Luckily, it took only about 30 seconds to repeat the steps above to uncheck the automatic updates from the Java control panel. The task is still programmed in Vista so my machine should be good to go and say goodbye to jusched.exe.
Information was on how to disable this program was found at this helpful site: vista.blorge.com
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