Windows 7 Update when not Logged In

We recently travelled from Fife to Spean Bridge, via Dalwhinnie, ie M90, A9 and A86.

As my lady-wife was driving, I had my ASUS Netbook running inSSIDer 2, to observe what WiFi circuits were showing up, mainly BT varieties north of Perth, to Dalwhinnie and down to Spean Bridge.

On stopping at a Dalwhinnie cafe, I attempted to close down the ASUS; but it warned me that it was INSTALLING a Windows 7 Update, so I left it in the car, carrying out that process etc.

Although monitoring the various WiFi circuits observed briefly, I had not knowingly logged in to any; and have not got any "auto-connects" registered for any on that route, apart from Stagecoach, City Link and Mega Bus - but the only coaches seen were all travelling south, so only within range for a few seconds but were detected - none of these lines were even seen on our northward journey.

After each "burst" of WiFis at villages and surprisingly remote spots, I would Stop and Start inSSIDer, to get a "clean slate".

None were of an obviously "free" nature, with no registration required; and again were only "in range" apparently for less than 30 seconds.

At one remote spot, with no obvious habitations etc, I picked up about 8 WiFi circuits.

Some hotels and garages were picked up as the A9 by-passed the locations, which were probably more than 100 metres away, some distinctly more than that; and that was inside the screening effects of our car.

The other registered WiFis are Ednburgh Airport (Virgin 2 hours free), and some hotels in Surrey where I occasionally stay on business trips.

The ASUS has basic Windows 7; and was running in Safe Mode. It had been in use both on the evening before and on that morning, tidying up etc; closing down normally, before embarking on that journey.

I did have an elderly GPS unit, Binatone CARRERA, plugged in to a USB port on the ASUS, as the GPS battery runs down very quickly. The other USB port has a Bluetooth chip.

Has anyone similar experiences?

Edited by deleted (Thu 25-Sep-14 11:03:05)

Several years ago a group of us in a car tailed an Oxford Tube coach for half an hour so that we could use their onboard wifi to access the web and find an address

This was before smartphones were available of course.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 25-Sep-14 14:04:28)

I'm purely guessing!!

It is possible that, via some previous connection, you had auto downloaded the majority of the update - then, during your Scottish trip, you only needed a very small amount more to be downloaded?

Hence, it then started to auto-install?

Afternoon John

That had occurred to me; but I am not aware of any "wide-open", "no registration/password" WiFis that this may/could have happened with.

In my travels to date, I have always found it necessary to actively complete any WiFi connection, particularly on the first access.

Hence my posting on TBB, to find out if any others have observed this etc.

Afternoon Andrue

That had been my intention to try, if we had been in convoy with a suitable north-bound coach; but to no avail.

It is possible to bypass firewalls and logon requirements using UDP to build a tunnel.

Evening Batboy

That I am aware of, I had done nothing of that nature at any time with that netbook, nor logged in to any of the fleetingly available WiFi circuits etc.

Simply booted the ASUS, followed by inSSIDer - nothing else.

Yes, but Microsoft may have.

Will be interesting to see if anyone else has proof of such happening!

With the amount of computers being used on trains, coaches, etc, I would expect that others would have noticed this, acknowledging that most would be logged in to a specific WiFi cicuit.

But many seem to also use them in an "isolated" manner, editing documents totally locally, ie effectively as I was.

Also, thinking back, I did note that the Safe Mode "Help" access was limited to "Off-Line", compared to the usuakl "On-Line" when at home and/or logged in to other WiFi circuits.

Interesting!

My "guess" was based on the assumption that you had picked up a connection that your Computer "thought" it had already verified.

As an example, my Mobile will automatically pick up on ANY Tesco connection, because I once connected at a specific store - but the SSID (etc) is identical at ALL Tesco Stores.