Vista/W-7 update

[Valorie *~]

I have not used dial up in years, but are joking here? I always thought
the Fax modem was just a modem and it did not matter what OS was on the
machine? Do they actually have different dial up modems for different
OS's??

Not everyone has access to fast internet. I live out in the country, not in
a city or town.

 

[Valorie *~]

Every now and then a MS update will screw things up. Some times minor
stuff other times major trouble. I long ago learned to keep auto updates
turned off. When they release a new one I watch the "tech news" for a few
days to see if anything pops up. If it does then I wait till they announce
they fixed it, then take the updates. I would not recommend just skipping
the updates.
I just typed into Yahoo "dial up modem will not work after Windows
update" and a lot of articles popped up. I would try this and do some
reading, see if someone has figured out what MS did, and how to fix it.

I saw the pages and pages of problems after an MS update. My husband spent
many hours trying to resolve the problem. We just decided to do a System
Recovery on the W-7 PC and see if that helps. If it doesn't, we're screwed.

 

[Sunny]

How would I know if it's a driver update?

Turn off anything to do with Auto update and go completely manual

Then you can check each update and "CHOOSE" which ones you need.
The poster is correct, never never never let Microsoft Update any of your
drivers, use the hardware manufacturer support site if you are having
driver issues.

 

[Alex Clayton]

Not everyone has access to fast internet. I live out in the country, not
in a city or town.

That is not what I meant. I know not everyone has access to Broadband. Where
one of my kids lives here they do not unless they want to use Satellite
which is still expensive. I just had no idea that the modems in PCs were
tied to the Windows OS. Back when I tried Linux I already had Broadband so
had no idea the modem would not have worked if I was still using dial up.
The Daughter of mine who can not get Broadband at their house go to a
local store with a hot spot to go on line.

 

[Alex Clayton]

pages of problems after an MS update. My husband spent many hours trying
to resolve the problem. We just decided to do a System Recovery on the W-7
PC and see if that helps. If it doesn't, we're screwed.

I had the same kind of problem here the other day. They have a wireless set
up at school for the students you have to log into. I had tried a new
firewall and was having trouble so I removed it at school. Then the
connection here would no longer work. Trouble shooting said something was
wrong with my wireless card. I did not have time to play around with it but
when I got home it was working fine on my home network. Next day at school
no go again. Did a system restore to a couple days earlier which put the
firewall back and it worked. So I waited till I got home and then removed
the firewall again, then back to school and at first it was showing the
network here as no access, but id did let me log in and took off working
again. Who knows. A lot of this is way over my head as to how it works.

 

[Zootal]

If you are removing the firewall you are infected. BIG TIME.

Idiot. I haven't used a firewall in years, and I've never been infected. It
helps to know what you are doing (and in your case, what you are talking
about). Oh, wait, how did you get out of my kill-file?

*plonk!*

 

[Valorie *~]

That is not what I meant. I know not everyone has access to Broadband.
Where one of my kids lives here they do not unless they want to use
Satellite which is still expensive. I just had no idea that the modems in
PCs were tied to the Windows OS. Back when I tried Linux I already had
Broadband so had no idea the modem would not have worked if I was still
using dial up.
The Daughter of mine who can not get Broadband at their house go to a
local store with a hot spot to go on line.

The nearest store to us with broadband is at least 30 miles from here.
Actually it's an indoor Mall. In the food area there's free Broadband. We
Have Satellite service but it's the pits. Every time it rains, drizzles or
snows, even flurries, we lose the service. Sometimes even in clear weather
there's no signal. Verizon in coming in with wireless. We'll probably try
that.

--
"Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites.
Moderation is for monks."

[Lazarus Long]

 

[Valorie *~]

I had the same kind of problem here the other day. They have a wireless
set up at school for the students you have to log into. I had tried a new
firewall and was having trouble so I removed it at school. Then the
connection here would no longer work. Trouble shooting said something was
wrong with my wireless card. I did not have time to play around with it
but when I got home it was working fine on my home network. Next day at
school no go again. Did a system restore to a couple days earlier which
put the firewall back and it worked. So I waited till I got home and then
removed the firewall again, then back to school and at first it was
showing the network here as no access, but id did let me log in and took
off working again. Who knows. A lot of this is way over my head as to how
it works.

There you go! It can drive you crazy. >:-(

My husband is really good with PCs and the hardware we buy with them like
printers etc. He's spent hours on this modem problem trying to get it
working and no dice. We once paid a tech to come out here to set up a
network for us, but he couldn't. He felt that the Satellite service was
somehow involved. He'd get it working but it never lasted for more than a
few hours or days at a time. My husband works from the house. He has his
own office here. Then a relative tried who maintains PCs and the network at
a large Business in the city and he couldn't get it to work either. He was
here almost all afternoon. I'm glad we didn't have to pay him by the hour.
All he would take was dinner.

 

[Valorie *~]

Idiot. I haven't used a firewall in years, and I've never been infected.
It
helps to know what you are doing (and in your case, what you are talking
about). Oh, wait, how did you get out of my kill-file?

*plonk!*

These PC NGs seem to have more landfill trolls and froggers than most. They
really damaged a few good PC related NGs already.

 

[Valorie *~]

Turn off anything to do with Auto update and go completely manual

Then you can check each update and "CHOOSE" which ones you need.
The poster is correct, never never never let Microsoft Update any of your
drivers, use the hardware manufacturer support site if you are having
driver issues.

Excellent idea. It's now to ask and has them showing in a window. I didn't
know I could click on them and see that they were not security related.
Last night MS installed SP1 and SP2 for this Vista PC. So far nothing seems
to have been affected. I went and downloaded "MS Security Essentials" and
shut off Avast. I hope that was the right thing to do.

 

[Valorie *~]

To which software do you refer besides Windows Mail?

There are too many to list. In any case, the tech we had moved to Calif so
there would be no one to install it. It would also void the warrantees on
these two PCs.

 

[Char Jackson]

The nearest store to us with broadband is at least 30 miles from here.
Actually it's an indoor Mall. In the food area there's free Broadband. We
Have Satellite service but it's the pits. Every time it rains, drizzles or
snows, even flurries, we lose the service. Sometimes even in clear weather
there's no signal. Verizon in coming in with wireless. We'll probably try
that.

As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago when you first brought it up,
what you're describing isn't normal. Did you ever call your satellite
provider and get that fixed? Apparently not.

 

[Char Jackson]

My husband is really good with PCs and the hardware we buy with them like
printers etc. He's spent hours on this modem problem trying to get it
working and no dice. We once paid a tech to come out here to set up a
network for us, but he couldn't. He felt that the Satellite service was
somehow involved. He'd get it working but it never lasted for more than a
few hours or days at a time. My husband works from the house. He has his
own office here. Then a relative tried who maintains PCs and the network at
a large Business in the city and he couldn't get it to work either. He was
here almost all afternoon. I'm glad we didn't have to pay him by the hour.
All he would take was dinner.

Too bad I live 15 hours away. The trip charge would be excessive but
at least you'd have a working network and working modems again.

 

[chrisv]

There you go! It can drive you crazy. >:-(

My husband is really good with PCs and the hardware we buy with them like
printers etc. He's spent hours on this modem problem trying to get it
working and no dice. We once paid a tech to come out here to set up a
network for us, but he couldn't. He felt that the Satellite service was
somehow involved. He'd get it working but it never lasted for more than a
few hours or days at a time. My husband works from the house. He has his
own office here. Then a relative tried who maintains PCs and the network
at a large Business in the city and he couldn't get it to work either. He
was here almost all afternoon. I'm glad we didn't have to pay him by the
hour. All he would take was dinner.

Judging by your posts, your "really good with PCs" husband is sabotaging
your PC just to drive you over the edge. You need to kill him.

 

[Zootal]

These PC NGs seem to have more landfill trolls and froggers than most.
They really damaged a few good PC related NGs already.

Unfortunately true. Frank and Alias earned a well deserved place in my kill
file a long time ago - just getting rid of them makes a huge difference
here.

Fortunately, there are enough considerate and helpful people in this ng to
make it worth coming here - there are newsgroups I used to use a lot that
have been rendered useless by the trolls. <sigh>...

 

[Alex Clayton]

The nearest store to us with broadband is at least 30 miles from here.
Actually it's an indoor Mall. In the food area there's free Broadband. We
Have Satellite service but it's the pits. Every time it rains, drizzles or
snows, even flurries, we lose the service. Sometimes even in clear
weather there's no signal. Verizon in coming in with wireless. We'll
probably try that.

That is one reason the kids have not tried satellite. It is expensive, and
from the reviews I had read the service is spotty at best. They looked at
the cost, then thought about did they want to sign a contract for 6 months,
and no. Now if the nearest hot spot was 30 miles away, that would be a
different story.
I know every time they visit the SIL is on the computer. I tried to tell
him to get a dial up account as it is better than nothing but I guess he
wants to look at too much stuff that just does not work on dial up.
They get cell fine so I told them to look into one of those plans that use
the cell. Also expensive, but not as bad as satellite, and when I have tried
them they seemed to work pretty good. Not as well as the cable at my house,
but better than nothing.

 

[Alex Clayton]

.. Who knows. A lot of this is way over my head as

If you are removing the firewall you are infected. BIG TIME.

It shows nothing. I am not running without a firewall, just was trying a 3d
party one instead of the Windows one. When I took off the 3d party one I
turned the Windows one back on.

 

[Alex Clayton]

Fortunately, there are enough considerate and helpful people in this ng to
make it worth coming here - there are newsgroups I used to use a lot that
have been rendered useless by the trolls. <sigh>...

Usenet has always been full of "noise". As long as you are reading it with
HS internet it's easy to skip over the noise and find what you need. This
group when it was first made was not available on a lot of servers so for a
while it was nice and quiet, but it still has plenty of great help when you
need it. You just ignore, skip over, or filter the noise.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

That is not what I meant. I know not everyone has access to Broadband. Where
one of my kids lives here they do not unless they want to use Satellite
which is still expensive. I just had no idea that the modems in PCs were
tied to the Windows OS. Back when I tried Linux I already had Broadband so
had no idea the modem would not have worked if I was still using dial up.
The Daughter of mine who can not get Broadband at their house go to a
local store with a hot spot to go on line.

In this context, there are two kinds of modems.

The self-contained modems, the ones with all of the hardware & firmware
needed to do their job, work fine with Linux and so on.

The so-called Windows modems are incomplete; much of their functionality
is meant to be done by the computer they are connected to. Even those
should work on Linux or Mac if someone wrote the software (drivers) to
make it happen.

Back when I occasionally had to buy a modem, I always made sure it was
what I consider to be a real modem, i.e., *not* a Windows modem.
Actually, I was pretty p*ss*d off when I discovered the existence of
Windows modems - that seemed like quite a rip-off to me

 

[Valorie *~]

As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago when you first brought it up,
what you're describing isn't normal. Did you ever call your satellite
provider and get that fixed? Apparently not.

Of course we've called them - MANY TIMES!!!!!!! Don't assume anything. We
get nowhere. They want us to replace the dish for $$$$$ but wont send anyone
out to check the system to see what's wrong with it. To see if it needs an
adjustment. It's in excellent condition and only about 4 years old. They
just want to make more money, not help solve the problem. We get the run
around just like when we had Hughes.net. Hughes.net was no better than
Wildblue.net.