What proxy does a system use if nobody is logged in?

The ITea Guy

6/28/24, 1:57 PM

If I have a Windows computer on a network that requires a proxy and I run scheduled task that needs it that runs overnight (or do something like Windows Update, etc), what proxy does the machine use to reach out? Is this something I can configure via GPO?

Currently, every system on our network has the proxy set up per user manually via Internet Options. I am trying to not only remediate that manual process, but also set up a script that will run MpCmdRun.exe -SignatureUpdate every few hours because our machines frustratingly do not pull down these things reliably from our local WSUS and makes our vulnerability scanner angry.

I see that the current best practice to set a proxy for users is a GPO setting "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings", configuring 3 reg values there. That's easily enough done, though I've yet to test it myself. But if nobody is logged in, there is no "Current User", correct? Thus, as I have learned MpCmdRun.exe -SignatureUpdate (or anything else) calls out to a server over the Internet, what proxy would it be using?

This is a mix of Windows 10 and Server 2019 devices.

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networking

windows

proxy

windows-10

windows-server-2019

MoWo

6/28/24, 4:29 PM

It won't use a proxy. The same would most likely still be the case if a user was logged on. The proxy setting in the Internet Options is primarily just adressing Internet Explorer / Edge Browser to use an HTTP proxy. Other programs that communicate via HTTP(s) or FTP may or may not use it. But anything that uses any other protocol for communication definitely will ignore it. I'm not certain about which protocol the MpCmdRun.exe tool uses for communication. Does this tool work in your current setup if a user is logged in but has no proxy configured in the internet options?

The ITea Guy

6/28/24, 6:21 PM

Hello - it does work if a proxy is set, but on a few machines I saw it fail if a proxy was not - I believe it threw Error Code 0x8024402c, which lead me to realize it was a proxy issue in that case. That in turn got me wondering about how this is supposed to work if I schedule it to run without a login.

Elon Musk

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EN: What proxy does a system use if nobody is logged in?

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