Dialup difficulties

[brad2thebone]

Hello, recently I have been experiencing difficulties with my dial-up connection under win98se.

It seems that when I try to establish a connection by clicking on favorites thru start button, the dial-up window doesn't initiate or when it does, there is an error msg. "unable to locate server"...

I am however, able to establish connection thru MSN Outlook Express.

I have checked internet options,- connection,- settings, numerous times.

Many times settings apear to be OK, other times "auto detect settings" is changed to "use proxy server".

I do not use proxy settings to my knowledge, and am confused to say the least.

I have gotten much help here in the past, and hope that someone could provide insight.

Thanks.

[SARGE]

What happens if you click the ISP icon to dial out; that's the way I always did it. Which ISP are you using? Using a firewall or ad blocker? Try unchecking all options in that box under connections.

[brad2thebone]

Hey! Thanks Sarge. Now that you mention it these difficulties arose after a Zone Alarm update.
Adsubtract is also in effect on this pc, but was disabled in order to troubleshoot.
I think I'll knock around w/ settings in Zonealarm, and see what I come up with.
Thanks for the smack in the head ;)

[SARGE]

ZA has been a pain at times. I can disable it on DL's pc and the Internet does fine. If I disable it on the other 2, no surfing to be found. Same ZA on all 3.

What kind of update did you do? I updated to the pro version once and couldn't surf. Found out there was a specific way to uninstall other ZA. Let us know if you believe ZA is the problem.

[brad2thebone]

Hiya, to answer one of your original questions, RCN is the provider, and yes I am able to dial-up using the quick launch icon. In answer to another, the freeware version of ZA was out of date as said the pop-up in the task bar. so whoever started this terminal on that particular day activated the automatic update. I believe the ZA version is currently 2.6.362. for what that's worth. I haven't been unable to determine if ZA is the culprit, as I do not see settings in it's control center. I will have to read more about it.
Lastly, this is a shared terminal that acts as a server for point of sale, and inventory database for a small retail business. Any number of things get "added and removed" by individuals who use it and may not best trained to do so. I believe that the system is in need of a much needed "clean-up". I just have to dedicate the time, before much else goes amiss. Thanks for your input.

[jamesrpm]

Zone alarm did my dial up in too. Which PO'ed everyone else here, we use ICS and my computer has the modem. Just running without it now , someday my DSL will come.