Okay, my parents just bought a new computer to replace the fire damaged one. The new one (Athlon XP2800, 160Gb hdd, 512 RAM, DVD+-R/RW... puts my rig to shame) has WinXP, which I've never had the joy of working with before.

I'm trying to get it set up like their old Win98 box, so when my Mom fires up Netscape and there's not currently an internet connection, the little box pops up for her to punch Connect. Know what I mean? (My Mom needs it to be as easy as possible, sometiimes it's amazing she can even turn the machine on in the first place).

Nutscape is already registered as the default browser and email prog. I've already gone through the selections of "Never dial a connection", "Dial when a connection is not present", "Always dial a connection" and that doesn't help. Edit == There is only one dial up connection set up, Earthlink, and it's set as the default connection.

What am I missing here? I'm sure there's got to be something somewhere that I'm overlooking.

Easy solution is DSL, but Dad doesn't want to spend the money. Besides, in 6-12 months when their house is rebuilt, DSL isn't available in that area, so he doesn't want to get used to nifty stuff just to have it taken away.

Thanks

Anyone?

Thanks in advance

If you haven't already, try the following:

1. Check the phone numbers Earthlink gave you.

2. Check her modem drivers. My own Mom's computer has a model that I later found out was incompatible with Windows XP without patching it (and it's still unstable as hell).

3. Did you check the phone cords? It's easy to mix up the symbols (thus the jacks) 'cause it's a bitch to see 'em in low light when they're stamped faintly...

4. Have you made sure there is no firewall software running (sometimes this comes bundles with your antivirus software, so you might check the settings).

5. Have you tried calling Earthlink support? That should be a free call, and they should help you hammer it out if you've already done the above.

Sometimes crap just happens...

A good example was I came into work one morning back in my Network admin days and nobody could connect to the internet (which the network was actin' just fine). Now, it had been working as of one O'clock that morning (I was always the last one to leave), and as the morning shift had just arrived (6 in the bloody morning), I was called in.

I called the company and they changed their configuration and had just booted up a new server with the changes that morning... without telling their customers.

Sometimes... it's not always on the customer's side.

ADD: WinXP kicks a lot of ass when you get used to it... it's just the transition that's tough. If yer Mom is used to stuff like Win 9x, 2000 or ME, you might want to make a few changes that will make XP look like Win2000.

A good start is using "Classic" settings (especially in the control panel), on the start menu, etc... If you need more help there, let me know...

Actually connecting to Earthlink works just fine. We just currently have to do it manually. As in, double-click earthlink connection icon, hit dial, when that's up, then fire netscape. Then things are as normal.

On her old machine (98), we could simply double click the netscape icon, and it would fire up netscape, then automatically bring up the connection dialog (then hit dial, it'd connect, and nutscape would already be open). This is what I'd like to get back, one less step to getting mom online.

Ya, she's used to 98. I've already changed the control panel to the classic setting, but that's for my own benefit Mom's not supposed to be in the control panel anyway LOL She seems to be doing surprisingly well with the start menu, perhaps it's cause the only things she really ever used were netscape and solitaire...

Thanks for the help Dark