A win 7 (64) downloads monitor?

Hi All

I am the hapless owner of a HP Dv7 Pavilion laptop which I have named "Sir Crashalot" because that's what it does. But, that's got nothing to do with this query.

For logistical reasons, I'm reduced to connecting to the internet via BigPond Wireless Broadband 2.0 and at the moment I'm on dialup speed having used all of my plan allowance (which is arguably not startlingly faster). As on other nights, I'm trying to solve a conundrum. The BigPond window at one point showed I had received 14MB, but the only two internet-connected applications I knew of were Norton, whose update (after about 30 minutes) had made it to 1.29 MB, and Firefox (Google search page only).

Does Windows 7 (64 bit) have some little tool to show users where the other MBs go? (i.e., a downloads monitor maybe as detailed as Task Manager?

Cheers

ausgumbie

Retroactively, this is probably not possible, but to see the current network activity, you can open the Resource monitor (just type "resmon" in the taskbar).

Aside from any "real time" monitor, you might consider doing what I do.
To avoid condemnation from others, note I say "might consider."
I keep update off. Once in a while, maybe weekly, I go look what's available, and download what I choose. There's over 100mb of "important" Office downloads there I don't need, security or otherwise. I don't use Office components online.
I always download "normal" system security updates.
Explore how updates works by going there. The time to see update download size is before they are downloaded. You can also see what updates have been installed too, and the date installed, but not size.

Thanks Both

I might mark this as solved if no other replies indicate there's something in the nature of what I'm after in Win 7.

Nevertheless, both good suggestions for keeping an eye an what's coming in.

Interesting to note, using the resmon, it seemed as if svchost.exe was taking a lot of exercise. Lo and behold today, Norton alerts me that the same file is using 11MB in disc writing. (By the time I'd finished reading the alert, the BigPond window showed it was up to 13MB so I went offline).

And offline I'm going now.

Cheers and again thanks

ausgumbie

svchost is, unfortunately, pretty much everything. Any system service, from basic folder management to Updates, including WebDAV and other connectivity services, appear as "svchost" ("Service Host") in the Task Manager and Resmon, because these threads only host DLL code, which does the actual work. In Win8, the different services are clearly labelled as what they are, but on 7, this is sadly not the case.

Your best chance is checking the remote address, and maybe looking this up, to narrow down the possible causes based on the target address.

Also, some Firewalls at least used to have statistics about which program uses and used how much traffic. Comodo and Outpost for example, if I remember correctly. At least these two should also offer a quick and easy way to set up their behaviour in a way that blocks everything unless explicitely allowed. The alerts can be annoying though.

Thanks to Thaliur again and kado

I am following up the networx monitor - sounds worth a tryout.

When I had another look at resmon, I noted "deploy.akamaitechnologies.com" playing about on a couple of lines. Did a bit of research (well, websearch anyhow) and it would seem possible that I have somehow given permission to Akamai to use my computer as a peer server.

Being the gumbie I claim to be, it is possible that the last utterance is rubbish but if it isn't, then I feel a bit gypped. It would imply that when I go back on the faster speed next month, I start repaying a favour I clearly hadn't known I'd done with my own dollars and connection speed.

Anyhow, this is drifting away from the original topic - is there such traffic monitor in Win 7, which there doesn't appear to be.

I wonder, since what I'll loosely call the "akamai" issue may have interest, maybe a mod could suggest a place for that to split off to?

Cheers

ausgumbie