Recent MSN Upgrades Causing Modem Problems?

swm asks: "My father-in-law runs Windows/XP on a low-end machine. He gets internet access through MSN over a 56K dialup. This worked OK for many months. Two or 3 weeks ago, MSN presented him with an auto-upgrade, and he clicked OK, and the system has been virtually unusable ever since. I booted the machine to see what it does. First, it thinks he is on a LAN (he isn't) and presents a window telling him it can't connect to the internet and he should disable his firewall. I dismiss that window. A few seconds later another window pops up and tries to dial out. I can cancel and close the dial-out window, but it just comes back in about 15 seconds and starts dialing out again. No matter how many times I cancel and close the dial-out window, it just keeps coming back. I reboot the machine and let it dial out. It connects to MSN. I click the 'Offline' button, but it doesn't drop carrier. I shut down the machine and it still doesn't drop carrier. Finally I pull the power cord out of the wall socket and it drops carrier. I've checked msn.com and Googled around a bit, and I can't find any mention of problems like this. Does anyone have any idea what is going on?" Have any MSN users experienced this problem? What have you done in your attempts to solve it?

Comments

find a suitable "restore point" in XP

[avi33]

As if they knew their own "upgrades" would cause problems, they were kind enough to include a feature not unlike undo on steroids.

This page decribes How to Restore Windows XP to a Previous State.

Red herring?

[kawika]

It's also entirely possible that the MSN upgrade has nothing to do with this problem. It sounds like some piece of software is insisting on an Internet connection. This is very common with many viruses and spyware that wants to phone home. Have you checked for viruses and spyware? If your dad installed syware like Gator you could see this behavior, for example.

Re:Red herring?

[deanpole]

Right. It is probably spyware. Try downloading Ad-Aware. It will make your computer boot faster too.

connections

[Chris Canfield]

Section A - on LAN: MSN sounds misconfigured / messed up. Always on / LAN is a viable option for a connection, but you don't have one. I'm not familiar with MSN's proprietary software, but you really don't need it. You can rifle around looking for the setting for LAN / dialup, but I'd just uninstall the useless thing.

Section B - Dialing in: The software has apparently become configured to auto-connect whenever there isn't a connection. I find that setting to be useful, but I don't have buggy windows software trying to dial home to return the error message saying there is no LAN. If you edit the network setting directly in Windows you should be able to fix this.

Section C - Not Hanging Up: Yes, modems can be quite sticky. If you really want to make them hang up on eachother, pick up the phone and blow on it, or unplug the phone cord from the wall. Some modems keep power flowing to the line which keep the connection alive. Blowing introduces noise, which convinces the other modem to hang up, while disconnecting the line disconnects the power.

There is a very important lesson here -- Your ISP is not your software vendor. Use none of their proprietary tools, and never auto-update. Mature, stable, solid tools for creating and maintaining TCP / IP connections exist and are readily available, and integrated email / internet solutions can be built with a little creativity and without programming anything.

-C

Setting up a Manual Connection

[alatesystems]

When I worked for Best Buy and we sold this crap, I would just uninstall the software from the user's computer and make a manual connection through dial-up networking. Another poster mentioned this, but I'll tell you how to go about it.

Since MSN shares their access lines with other ISPs you have to specify which you are using by doing the following.

Use for the username: MSN/username
and then the password is the same
And of course, the access # you can get from the software itself or by going to msn.com and looking up access numbers in the search box.

So once again to recap:
Phone #(access #)
username: MSN/username
password: password

Chris
www.talkingtoad.com

Also-to-note:

[Hubert_Shrump]

Man, when we took MSN calls we HATED what BB used to do to people. No offence, but don't mention it to an MSN tech. They'll adjust your modem speed and give you a ticket number faster than you can spit.

If you build a manual connex, MSN isn't going to use it unless you specify you have "another ISP".

In the bad old days of MSN 6/7, you could repop it with CTRL-shift-F8, but I don't know if that works anymore...