From: Mike N. 

On Sat, 21 Apr 2007 14:10:32 -0400, mike  wrote:

>
>I was writing a document using Microsoft Word (2002) yesterday.  I
>wanted to insert a horizontal line in the document.
>
>I went to the Format>Border menu and selected horizontal line.  After
>about 15 seconds, a selection of horizontal lines appeared.   Each time
>I tried it, there was a 15 or so second delay.  Then I noticed there was
>also network activity that seemed prompted by my accessing that
>particular menu.
>
>The netstat command showed that Microsoft Word was phoning home just so
>I could draw a horizontal line in my document.  Geesh.
>
>TCP    [snip]:4573         b.office.microsoft.com:http  ESTABLISHED
>TCP    [snip]:4574         b.office.microsoft.com:http  ESTABLISHED

   The tendency for office going online is very irritating.  The help
originally insisted on going online, but I managed to disable that.  Online
help is slower than mollasses, and there's no justification for it if the
help exists locally.   What, do they think help changes so fast that you
need to read it online?

   Visual Studio also has the annoying habit of trying to portray the
online help as faster than local help.  The reality was that they were
giving preference to online help.   This became apparent when my connection
was down - it actually blocked out the local help while trying to connect
to online help.   I put an end to that one by completely disabling online
help.


  All that being said, I reproduced the online forced connection issue for
horizontal line -

It's posting to
http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/dglx.aspx

x-office-version: 11.0.6551\r\n
-Colle
ctions

   Note that they include your version of office.  Perhaps a necessary part
of the communication.   But what a marketer's dream!    Now they can sunset
your version of Office any time they please by remotely disabling the
horizontal line draw.

  You can disable this nonsense  by configuring the Online Content Settings
stuff in the help area (it might be different for 2002).

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5