This usually is safe and recommended thing to do, let MS Office connect to
the www. With Zone Alarm, you do have an option you can check to remember
your decision on Allowing or Denying MS Office access to web so that you do
not have repeat your answers. I do not recommend doing this, and there maybe
other options that I have not listed here, but you can, inside Word, go to
Tools, Options.., General tab, and uncheck Update automatic links at Open,
next go to the Service Options€¦ button on the bottom of the General tab,
click it, go to Online Content and uncheck everything, next go to Shared
Workspace and click the Never buttons, now click the Ok button, back to the
General tab, click the Web Options€¦ button, go to the Files tab and uncheck
the items related to the internet, i.e. Updates and checking.

Please let me reiterate, I do not think you should do this. If you are
worried about viruses and stuff like that, I recommend you run updates for
Windows and Office all the time and hope that MS does their job and the
hackers of the world think of something better to do with their time.

--
Top Notch Admin


"RA RHU" wrote:

Every time I launch Word 2003, Zone Alarm tells me that it is trying to
access the internet, specifically a DNS server on the local network. Each
time this occurs, I deny the internet access and everything appears to work
correctly.

Can anyone give me some insight as to what it might be trying to access the
internet for and how I can stop this?

I am running WXP Pro SP2 and Office 2003 Pro with all available updates
installed on a Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook if that provides any clues.