Am just doing autopopulate at the moment with some 1700 being processed - will check the numbers when done and see what it says. However i do not think this number increased when doing previous auopopulates.
I do have the windows firewall activated (installed by XP Sp3 by default) but it has ANRB as an exception and it looks as if it is being directed to the correct file (anrb.exe file)
There is a bit of confusion here.
The RadarBox autopopulate function does not require you to do anything - you can't switch it on or off - if you have an internet connection, it just works in the background. This autopopulate function populates NavData.db3 and this is the database you are looking at in Database Explorer. (However, you can give the autopopulate function a "kick" by clicking on an aircraft line in MyFlights or Network.)
The populate function in MyLog is completely different. This appears to
only populate aircraft in the MyLog list and when you are looking at MyLog, you are looking at the completely different database MyLog.db3
NavData.db3 is the database that is used to show aircraft details in the MyFlights and Network aircraft lists. Also, the data in NavData.db3 is copied across to MyLog.db3 when an aircraft is detected "live" using your antenna.
When you use the MyLog > Tools > Populate function, this is only going to populate those empty records in MyLog.db3 - it doesn't affect NavData.db3 in any way. This is not an "autopopulate" function, as you have to hit the button for it to work.
So, when you get a message that there are 96 aircraft to populate in MyLog, RB is looking at the NavData.db3 database and possibly the AirNav server too. You are almost never going to get to a zero count here, but the number should reduce. If it says 1700 and never gets any less, then you have a problem.