I have my TCP-VIEW App open from Sysinternals, and im seeing a lot of hanging [Close Wait] ports that just stay at [Close Wait].. and never clear up..

Is there anyway to make these [Close Wait] ports close-clear up immediately after they have been used.. so they don't hang saying [Close Wait] ..??

OS:
XP PRO SP2

anybody have any ideas..??

No netstat -b from the terminal to see which processes are using those ports.

Intrigued - as far as I know this is normal. It does not use any system resources and is not a security threat so long as you have a working firewall. Why worry?

There is nothing wrong with a closed - wait port, it's still closed but waiting for a port call and will open when it needs to, just ensure your firewall is working so there isn't a security threat.

ok, but is there still a way to make the ports clear up - close immediately after they have been used. like changing a registry entry or something..??

I remember the TCP guidelines for time-wait specify a maximum of 4 minutes. I assume Windows follows that guideline, although MS could have chosen anything in between... I'm unsure what the default value is.

But to answer your question, yes, there is a registry setting:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infoce...newindows.html

Use your at your own discretion.

Close-Wait ports are (in some systems) cleared only when the Idle process gets invoked.
On heavily used systems where Idle is seldomly achieved, these ports hang around for quiet a long time.

Q? what processes are keeping the processor running?