[Jim727]

A bit of assistance would be much appreciated.

I am configuring a Thinkpad T-43 with XP Pro - needed for a remote desktop client. I have built it up in my normal fashion by immediately cloning the original hd to a new, larger hd using Acronis then built my partitions and installed SP3 and .nut 3.5 which was required by the rdp client.

I installed my standard security/spyware programs - WebWasher, Spybot, SpywareBlaster, HijackThis, ZoneAlarm (Ugh, but I want outbound connect info) and AVG anti-virus (on a recommendation), and Firefox 3.0.5, locking it down as much as possible, and added a printer via dedicated ip address. Up to this point, the computer has not seen the internet, just the local network.

Added in the remote desktop and configured to connect to the client site - all seemed to be well with the world. It isn't. Netstat is indicating four ports connected to doubleclick.net; now I'm pissed. I removed the modem from the network for troubleshooting.

What I have learned is that bringing up a browser initiates an aggressive attempt for *something* to find a port for connecting to doubleclick.net with what appears to be as many as 20 ports tried until four are established. Tracing back, the origin is always the browser - I installed Opera to see if the behavior is the same and it is.

HijackThis shows AVG installed a BHO which I removed. I have uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled with a different version. I uninstalled AVG. I uninstalled ZoneAlarm. No improvement. To verify that it isn't the Thinkpad, I replaced the current hd with the original and brought up ie. Netstat shows no doubleclick, so I'm thinking it had to have arrived with software.

I have four other computers here (two of them Thinkpads) configured with the same software except they are W2KPro, use Avast anti-virus, and an older version of ZoneAlarm. None of them have doubleclick connections.

Whatever is trying to connect to doubleclick.net is well below the radar and I'm about out of ideas. The only thing left seems to be to reformat the drive and start the process over; something I'm not relishing. I'm hoping the brain trust here has some suggestions as the offending Thinkpad is banished from the net until this goddamn doubleclick connection is killed permanently.

Thoughts??