labview accessing internet upon launch

[Macbeth]

I just installed LabView 8.5 and now everytime I open th program my firewall pops up a message that LV wants to access the internet. I know this has been mentioned before and probably has something to do with the #$$@! license manager but it's very annoying. I now select the firewall option to  "allow access once". I just know that if I select "block all acess" something will break.
My copy of LV is certainly legal....how do I set up LV to get all the info it needs in one access and stop trying to call home all the time?

[mikeporter]

LV probably isn't phoning home. It's more likely that you have TCP/IP enabled under options and the program is setting itself up as a server. The example finder can also access the internet to do searches.

Mike...

[altenbach]

Why don't you look at your security log in a bit more detail? What was the destination IP?

LabVIEW communicates via 127.0.0.1 with other processes, and since this is the loopback address, there is no security risk because the communication is only local..

Still, some personal software firewalls are pretty dumb and flag these things just to appear useful. 😉 What is your firewall software?

Also remember that the LabVIEW installation pointed out to you that you might need to allow LabVIEW to access the network. Do so! Why do you think there is a security risk?

[Macbeth]

Thanks for the tips...I checked to see if TCP/IP was enabled under options but it's not.And I, like many others, assume that the LVinstallation needed access for registtration and activation ONLY. 
And I realize there isn't going to be a security risk but in this day and age it doesn't seem very wise for software developers to create issues like this.
My firewall may be dumb but it's doing its job and I'm glad it is.
I'll just select the option to allow all access for LVand remember this if working on a customer's setup.

Thanks again

Message Edited by Macbeth on 10-16-2007 06:25 AM

[smercurio_fc]

As mentioned before, what you are seeing is "normal" as far as a typical LabVIEW installation is concerned. Many of the additional services that get installed with LabVIEW talk to LabVIEW, and for this to work LabVIEW needs to act like a server. An example is the NI Service Locator service. That's all that McAfee is flagging. Whether or not you need these services depends on what you're doing. You can always turn them off one at a time through the Services control panel and see what breaks.