"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

a little hiccup
May 17, 2002 - 8:27 pm

haha, here's my install story:

i do the cd upgrade thang. yes thang, not thing. it probably took like an hour. i didn't pay attention.

things get all done and up my new windows xp comes. being the junkie i am, i try to connect to the net first thing. i get this 769 error deal. soemthing about my winpoet program can't find a device. so i think no real problem. i know how to readd my nic card.

nic card is there. i fiddle with this and that, careful not to save anything. things look good to my novice eye. i debate my options: call microsoft or call my isp. since i dunno what the problem is, i decide to start with microsoft.

i get to this guy after like fifteen minutes, not bad at all. he was a very nice guy who had me look at all sorts of things. he went to my isp's webpage to look at info. he went to HP's webpage to check out my nic card info. he searched this database and that. all in all he seemed a pretty nice guy. i was impressed. he put me on hold to talk to this person and that. they couldn't find anything wrong with windows. they suggest i try my isp to see if it's something they are familiar with. fair enough and off i go to call me isp. i was probably with this guy for like half an hour/fourty-five minutes.

i call me isp and he goes 'you did what?' i repeat myself, that i had windows ME and upgraded, via cd, to windows XP. he goes 'this is going to be messy.' it seems that the winpoet program thingie my isp used for operating systems below windows xp will not work with windows xp. see, windows xp has it's own built in winpoet programmie. so he says to try a long shot and see if winpoet is still in the add/remove list. if it is, things are easy. it's not, therefore things are hard. he suggests that i uninstall the upgrade, going back to windows ME...then use add/remove to delete winpoet and redo the upgrade and i should be fine. he made it out to be a nightmare, but to me..it's not so bad. it's just time to let things run and uninstall, then remove the little bugger and reinstall. pretty easy i think.

so i call microsoft back to tell the guy what my isp says the problem was so he can update his database and help out the next poor bastard. i'm in a nice guy mood since i hit two very nice tech supporters. the guy confirms that uninstalling xp is not a problem and neither is reinstalling it. he says to call back i do all this and let them know if it works.

while i'm on the phone with microsoft, my isp called. i didn't take the call, but call back thinking perhaps he forgot to tell me step or two. i get through to a new isp techie and explain what's going on. he repeats his coworker 'god this is going to be messy' we talk a bit and he's not sure that winpoet will still be in my add/remove when i downgrade. he starts talking about having to 'hack' registries and deleting entries by hand. i ask if he can help me do this, if i need to. he says they can, but it's apperently easy to screw up and once you screw it up your done and might have to reformate. he doesn't like this option at all. neither do i. he reads what i told the other tech at my isp and says, 'lets try a longshot'.

for the second time that night i try the long shot. he says to go to the network manager stuff and pick new connection. i walk through the five or so steps to start windows own winpoet type program and it works.

that's right. no uninstall or deleting anything. i'm good to go. i thank the guy heartily. in like an hour, once i'm well into my weekend free minutes i'm going to call microsoft back and tell em all i had to do was create a new connection.

i kinda felt dumb for not thinking of it. it's like forgetting to see if the pc is plugged in or not. everyone else was all off on technical problems..when all i needed to do was recreate my connection in windows.

i think, as far as my sorrid history with such computer problems has been, that this was the best experience with tech support i've had. sure two of 'em missed an obvious thing, but they were all nice and as helpful as could be. how can ya be unhappy with that?