This morning I left my computer with Google Chrome open and left to go do something, when I returned I discovered that the Chrome window was in focus and the current webpage was MSN News, I took this as another one of Microsofts invasive, forceful, and aggressive strategies to push its products onto users, however after some research I discovered the reason may be a little more innocent.
Windows has a feature called NCSI or Network Connection Status Indicator, it's the service which allows Windows to know whether you are connected to the internet or not, it also enables Windows to let you know if additional sign in information is required to connect to a network.
If Windows cannot connect to its servers at http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt then it seems to resort to opening the MSN News website in your default browser.
While it is a neat feature in Windows which improves the user experience when connecting to different networks, I also don't appreciate Windows randomly opening tabs in my browser, fortunately, there is a way to disable this potentially annoying feature.
- Open regedit
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NlaSvc\Parameters\Internet
- Set EnableActiveProbing to 0
To simplify this process I have also rolled these changes into an easy to use .reg file, simply double click the reg file once downloaded and confirm to merge the changes.
Download: ActiveProbing_Disable.reg
You shouldn't receive any more random MSN windows after applying this change. If this post helped you let me know in the widget below.
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