Short answer: probably not magically “someone on the Internet” — it’s almost always a local program, scheduled task, or leftover startup entry trying to open a connection or file. You can trace the exact program that launches the popup; below I’ll show the fastest checks (safe) and one solid capture method (guaranteed to identify the parent process).
First — quick question
- What exactly does the popup show? Can you paste the exact text or a screenshot? That helps a lot.
- Does the popup appear immediately at sign-in, a few seconds later, or after you open some program?
Immediate quick checks (fast, low-risk)
1) Check Startup entries and Task Manager
- Open Task Manager → Startup tab and disable anything unfamiliar. Also open Details and add the Command line column; then reproduce the popup and look for any process that recently started and whose command-line looks suspicious. This is a very effective first step. uler
- Task Scheduler Library → look for tasks set to trigger At log on / At startup / On idle. Many background jobs launch short-lived consoles or GUI dialogs.
3) Services and Schervices.msc and look for non‑Microsoft services set to Automatic. If the popup disappears in Safe Mode, it’s almost certainly a 3rd‑party app/service.
The guaranteed trace (recommended)
If thto inspect, capture the actual process creation with Sysinternals Procmon (Process Monitor):
A. Download and run Process Monitor (Procmon) from Sysinternals.
B. In Procmon: stop capturing, enable a filter:
- Operation is Process Create (or Process Name is cmd.exe if you see short cmd windows).
- Optionally add a filter for Path contains "ip" or window text if you know it.
C. Clear the current log, start capturing, reproduce the popup once, then stop capture.
D. Inspect the captured event(s) — Procmon shows the exact executable path and parent process that created it. That tells you exactly which program launched the “IP SERVER” popup. This approach is the most reliable way to see which binary is responsible.
Other useful tools & commands
- Autoruns (Sysinternals) — shoe / scheduled task / services / explorer shell extension so you can spot odd startup entries. Disable suspects here (but don’t delete until identified).
- Process Explorer — if the pop-up stays long enough, use its “Find Window’s Prock the window and jump to the process.
- If the popup is network-related (mentions IP/port): netstat -ano | findstr :<port> then match PID tot /fi "pid eq 1234"
- In PowerShell: Get-Process -Id 1234 | Select-Object Path
Or use TCPView to see live connections and owning processes.
Safety / suspicion checklist
- If the process path is under C:\Windows\System32 or a signed vendor install folder and its naoduct (Antivirus, printer software, Bonjour/mDNS responder, VPN client, etc.), likely benign. If it’s in %TEMP% or an odd user folder, treat as suspicious.
- Do a full AV/antimalware scan (Windows Defender + Malwarebytes) if you find unexpected executables or network connections. If you suspect activethe machine from the network first.
If you want, I can walk you through doing Procmon and interpreting the log
- Tell me whether you’re comfortable installing Sysinternals tools. I’ll post the exact Procmon filter to use, how to capture a minimal log (so it’s easy to paste/share), and what lines to look for. If you can attach a screenshot of the popup or paste the exact text, that might let me tell you the likely culprit immediately.
References from our troubleshooting library: step-by-step checks (Task Manager Command line, scheduled tasks, Autoruns, clean‑boot), Event Viewer & Procmon suggestions are standard practice for this exact symptom.
If you post the popup text or a screenshot I’ll give the fastest next step tailored to what it shows. Want to proceed with Procmon now?