RSS feed synchronisation: On or off
By default, RSS Feed synchronsation is disabled in IE7.
This is a good thing, because RSS Feeds will continue to synchronise even if Internet Explorer 7 is shut down.
I prefer that RSS Feed synchronisation be disabled on corporate networks - not only for bandwidth reasons, but because RSS is already proving to be a bit of a distraction and productivity sapper. If the user wants to update his or her feeds there are two options. Right click any Feed and select "Refresh All" or, if you are using Beta 2 or older (why haven't you updated yet, if you are still running that build?) then you can run the following command: msfeedssync forcesync
If IEAK is available to you, you can use that to disable background feed synchronisation. You can get the IEAK here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/ie/ieak7/default.mspx