Connecting
I just spent four days connecting my sister’s Dell computer running Windows 98 to the internet. I had the privilege of meeting the wonderful people at AT&T tech chat, and of learning far more than I wanted to ever know about modems.
Do Tell
Turns out her computer had been set up to log on to a network, which in turn somehow produced many extraneous TCP/IP entries in her “Network” settings. Weeding these out finally allowed the modem to talk to the outside world successfully. My shout of joy was an intense one when I finally dialed up and Google showed its friendly logo.
Shut Up
The whole process was not without other rewards. In fact, I found a wonderful little string of code to mute my modem’s unbelievably annoying dial-up noises. The modem’s screeching formerly came from the speakers, but now I can listen to music uninterrupted and still dial up (our area does not have DSL yet). As for the actual code, it’s simply “AT M0” entered in the correct box. That box is called “Extra initialization settings” in WinXP. It can be found via control panel > phone and modem options > modems tab > properties > advanced tab. Furthermore, if you still want to hear a dialing sound, but a quieter one, I believe you can change the “0” in the code to a “1,” etc.
Tech Support
My best advice for hook-up problems is as follows: for God’s sake use tech support. Furthermore, update your modem’s drivers, research your problem on the provider’s website, and most of all: do not give up.
Bottom Line
In the end, it is not the fact that the software was so difficult to configure, and supplied absolutely no hint of the problem. It was not that AT&T uses proprietary software that provides no added features and simply takes up room on the computer. The problem was that the solution took four days to find. I am tired of being tech support: connecting computers, disconnecting computers, backing up emails with Outlook’s unbelievably feature-anemic and obtuse email exporting feature, using HiJack this to clean off dirty spyware, and researching the um-teenth suspicious *.exe file that was found. As of now, I am officially retired from tech support. I will come out only for very short periods of time in desperate situations. Thank you.