Internet and Outlook send/receive problem

Question

I have an older (4yrs) Dimension 4100 with Windows ME upgrade purchased with computer and MS Office 2000 SR1.  I recently tried to download dial up broadband software from my ISP.  I believe the software is from Propel(?).  After I installed it I got a Support Tuner error on restart. (this may be unrelated to my problem) . I could no longer send/receive email even though I could dial in.  I get a 'my account' POP3 server could not be found...error. I could no longer get on the Internet either.  Page cannot be found.  I called tech support from ISP.  Uninstalled and reinstalled software with no change in problem.  Uninstalled again.  Still cannot connect.  They had me unistall and reinstall 'communications' from control panel.  No change.  Finally they suggested reinstalling ME.  When I tried to uninstall, it had to check my C drive for errors, but seems to get hung up, even overnight.  I turned off the screen saver and tried again with no results.  Microsoft online help directed me to Dell since that is where I got the software from.  Any suggestions?

jmwills · Answer

What is 'Dial-Up Broadband'?

Mccallg · Answer

Dial up broadband is a software that allows dial up Internet to work up to 5 x faster than regular dial up...supposedly.  I went into MicroSoft's tech forum and found some helpful tips.  My scan disk program was stalling because there were other programs running in the background.  I used Task Manager, i.e. ctr- alt-dlt,  to end all programs except Explorer and a system program (forgot the name).  I ran clean disk to get rid of unnecessary programs, ran scan disk, which worked this time, and then defragged the hard drive just to clean things up a little more.  I was then able to uninstall Windows ME.  Outlook works now, but I am getting an error that shuts down IE after the home page pops up.  Looking at the url, it looks like Windows update is trying to launch when I have my home page set to msn.com.  It's probably just the way my Windows 98 is configured because that never happened when I had ME running.  I don't think it will be a that hard to fix.  I should probably just upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP and skip ME.

jmwills · Answer

56k is 56 k. You are not going to get any faster than the modem or ISP can provide.

klbf · Answer

that program only speeds up your dialup connection by caching websites you've been to, so if you go to them again it can open them from your computer... i think they are over rated as you can set that feature in your browser 'firefox/ explorer' anyway

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

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