Black Pop-Up

[WheelsintheJIC]

I keep having this black pop-up on my screen. Can anyone tell me what it might be. Please.

[negotio]

tasking.exe is the Windows Task Scheduler. So this is nothing suspicious. From me it looks like your system administrator has scheduled a logon script.
Are you using a administered laptop or are you administrating the system by yourself?

[WheelsintheJIC]

It's a school laptop {so school administered} and it does pop up on the half hour. But what I would like to know is what is it doing. Some people at school say that it's doing an update. Others say it's a virus scanner. Some others even say that it takes a screen snapshot. (like an iPhone) Do you have any clue.

[negotio]

It is connecting to a school server and synchronizing your user profile to the school server, I would suggest. Maybe t makes updates, too. From the screenshot this is hard to say. It surely does not make a screenshot nor is a virus. If they want to "spy" on you they would use much more sophisticated ways. By the way: Who should check all the screenshots manually. A virus would not use your school server smhsbr.org. So do not worry. In fact there are better and more "silent" ways to do such administrating stuff. I would feel annoyed, if I got disturbed from my work every hour. But the IT hopefully knows, why they do it this way

[WheelsintheJIC]

Just an update here. I was playing a game yesterday and the half hour rolled round, the black box popped up and when it disappeared again. I tried to continue and it said that shockwave player had stopped unexpectedly. It asked if I would liked to reload the page and when it reloaded this appeared. (See Attachment) Now call me crazy, but this is the same thing that happens when you try to get on most other game sites. (Second attachment includes another game site showing the same thing)

[negotio]

So if you had access to the gaming site and this access was blocked just after this script (->pop-up) came up, you may be right. But this is definitively a strange way to limit asccess to "special" sites. If I want somebody not accessing a site, he should never access it. May it be that a site contains illegal or not approbiate material or for another reason. If I want to protect my network form viruses, it will be to late to "kick" somebody off a dangerous site after one hour, because a virus might have already been installed.
So all network protection should not run on the client (->your laptop), but on the server providing internet access.
Is it posible that your school runs a kind of fair use policy, which allows "nearby" unrestriced internet access in the pupil's freetime, but limts the access during the school hours. That would make sense. I do not think it is a good idea trieing to access sites that you should not. In fact I think you school has a policy for that and you may get into trouble, if you do not respect it. There are often ways to circumvent limitations, but if you get caught, you can not even say that you did this by accident. Due to that fact that all network traffic runs through their servers they can see where their pupils are surfing to. So it will be better to do "private" stuff on your private laptop with your private internet access, if your school does not give permission to use their equipment privately.

[WheelsintheJIC]

As for the personal network theory- I'm 99% sure that the school doesn't.
I'm well aware of the consequences of venturing onto gaming sites.

[negotio]

Do not mind it is not my job nor my right to lecture somebody. I have my lessons learned and as I was younger and have to say, that sometimes things are not worth the trouble .

Sometime getting the game running is more fun than the game itself...

The things I mentioned are just the best practice as network administration is normally done. That does not mean that a network administrator does not reinvent the "wheel" even if this has edges