This is pretty far off-topic, but my ISP has no answers for me (at least not any that I care for) so I figured I would ask the most technically astute group of people I know.

There is apparrently a bug in the Windows 98/Netscape combination that strikes rarely and randomly. What happens is that the computer no longer causes the modem to autodial the connection when I click on the Netscape icon.

A check of Start/Settings/ControlPanel/InternetOptions/Connections reveals that the autodial setting is set to "Never Dial". If I change this setting to "Always Dial" then everything works properly until the next time I reboot my computer, then it is back to "Never Dial".

My ISP tech support tells me that this is a known but uncommon problem, and that the only way to fix it is to re-install Windows.

I can verify that this bug is real, and that I have it. Has anybody else ever heard of this? More importantly, has anybody else ever found a solution?

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Not having a Win98 box with netscape on it, all I can guess is in the registry, somewhere in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings,

I dont have a modem, so I can assume that there will be an auto dial function there, or put a little script in startup to flip it back to auto dial....

Maybe yes, maybe no, who knows?

all I can guess is in the registry, somewhere in
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings,

Yes, indeed. HKEY_Current_Config\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings is set to 01 00 00 00 If I go into the Settings/ControlPanel/InternetOptions etc. thing and enable autodialing, it dutifully changes the registry setting to 00 00 00 00. Then the next time I reboot, it's back to 01 00 00 00.

This is as far as I can go with my limited technical abilities.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

I had a similar problem in Windows 95, and I had a work-around that might apply here. The work-around did not fix the bug, and it's a bit of a brute force hack, but it did the job until I upgraded to Win98 (where the bug was fixed).

My problem was that Win95 had bugs with certain IDE controllers. It would intermittently refuse to load the 32-bit device drivers and go into "MS-DOS Compatibility Mode" on the hard disks. This slowed things down to a crawl. And once it had happened once, Windows figured that the IDE controller wasn't compatible with the 32-bit device drivers and would put a "NOIDE=1" entry in the registry, forcing the bug to happen every single time the system booted.

So my solution? Create a registry file with "NOIDE=0" in it, then add that registry file to my startup group. If the bug ever happened again, it would at least fix itself on the next reboot.

So, in your case, something similar might work. Give this a shot:

- Attached to this BBS post is a file. Download that file.

- Unzip the file file into a known location with an 8.3 (non-longfilename) directory name such as "c:\bugfix"

- Create a new SHORTCUT in your StartUp group. (If you haven't enabled multiple-user-profiles on your computer, this folder is located in c:\windows\start menu\programs\startup. Open this folder in Windows Explorer, right-click on a blank area of the folder, and say "new... shortcut".)

- In the "command line" box for the shortcut, enter regedit /s c:\bugfix\bugfix.reg

- When it asks you for a name for the shortcut, call it "Bugfix".

See if the problem now fixes itself with each reboot. I don't know if it will, no guarantees...

If not, try editing every occurence of the "EnableAutodial" key in the registry. On my system, I found it in HKEY_CURRENT_USER, in HKEY_USERS\.Default, in HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG, and in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Config\0001.

Let us know how you do...

___________
Tony Fabris

CURRENT USER values are usually copied from the USERS section on boot - it implies you are always going to have this value over-written at boot time.

Maybe you could do a registry search, note all instances of the key, RECORD THEM, edit them all to autodial, and then try a re-boot?

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

No, CURRENT_USER _is_ the correct piece of the USERS hive - it's a symlink, in the same way as HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is a symlink to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes. There's no copying involved.

(Actually, on Win2K, HKCR is treated differently, but...)





Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

(Actually, on Win2K, HKCR is treated differently, but...)


Jeez, you Linux geeks have no idea what current_user is about.

Okay, here's how current_user works...

On Windows NT3/NT4//2000, the concept of multiple user profiles is strictly enforced. Each new user who logs in gets a whole new hive of entries under HKEY_USERS. The default values for these new users come from HKEY_USERS\.Default the first time they log in. In this case, HKEY_CURRENT_USER is just a pointer to that user's hive under HKEY_USERS.

On Windows 95/98/ME, multiple user profiles is an option. If multiple user profiles is not enabled, then every user is the same as the default user. In this case, HKEY_CURRENT_USER == HKEY_USERS\.Default. But if multiple user profiles are enabled, then suddenly everything works like it does on NT and suddenly HKEY_CURRENT_USER =/= HKEY_USERS\.Default.

I've had to deal with this in my company. A lot of developers would develop on 95/98 and assume that current_user==.default in all cases, then wonder why their software didn't work on NT or on a multiple-profiles-enabled system.

The HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG acts in a similar fashion, except in that case you're talking about various keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE being the actual keys. It appears as though the HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG stuff behaves a little differently, though, and this may be the root of the bug since the setting appears to be in that hive as well as in the user hive.

___________
Tony Fabris

...enable autodialing, it dutifully changes the registry setting to 00 00 00 00. Then the next time I reboot, it's back to 01 00 00 00.

Ooops. I wrote that at work trying to remember how my home computer behaved, and of course I got it backwards. When it is at 01 00 00 00 autodialing does work. Unfortunately, every time I reboot it gets changed to 00 00 00 00 and autodialing is turned off.

Tony was nice enough to send me a simple patch that runs out of the Startup menu. The patch will turn autodialing back on, but whatever it is that is turning autodialing off is happening after the Startup menu items run. If I run his patch after the boot process is complete, autodial will work normally, until I reboot again.

I have copied the icon for Tony's patch into my system tray next to my Netscape and IE icons, and I just click Tony's icon one time before starting the others. It works, but of course the true moral satisfaction will come from defeating this bug altogether.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Doug,
You could try the program 'regmon' from http://www.sysinternals.com/. It monitors all registry access for debugging purposes.

Frank van Gestel

You could try the program 'regmon' from http://www.sysinternals.com/. It monitors all registry access for debugging purposes.

Well..... maybe, but I don't think it would do what I need because the problem occurs during the bootup process, and regmon runs only after bootup is complete. :-(

tanstaafl.


"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Well..... maybe, but I don't think it would do what I need because the problem occurs during the bootup process, and regmon runs only after bootup is complete.

Hmmm. Try this. Try holding down the "shift" key as you boot the computer (after it starts loading Windows).

This skips all the stuff piled into the startup group. Perhaps there's something extra being loaded when the computer starts causing the bug. If the bug goes away with the "shift" key held down, then we can start a process of elimintation to find out which crapplet is the cause of the problem.

___________
Tony Fabris

This skips all the stuff piled into the startup group.

Sigh.... "all the stuff" consists of one tiny applet called ClipTrak that I got from PC Magazine (it stores the most recent 100 Windows clipboard entries for subsequent retrieval) and I've been running that applet since May of 1999 with no problems.

Good thought, though...

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

"all the stuff" consists of one tiny applet called ClipTrak that I got from PC Magazine

Well, actually I think it skips other stuff, too. I'm pretty sure it skips the stuff in the load= and run= lines in WIN.INI, but I'm not sure about the stuff in the Run and RunOnce sections of the registry. Do peek at those things and see if there's anything there that might cause the bug.

___________
Tony Fabris

I've always found 'msconfig' to be helpful too, you might want to check it out.

________
Donato
MkII/Blue/40GB/080000565

I've always found 'msconfig' to be helpful too, you might want to check it out.

Thanks, I wanted to mention that utility in my post but couldn't remember its name. I'm on Windows 2000 at the moment (the utility doesn't come with NT or 2000) and couldn't do any trial-and-error stuff with the run box.

Doug, go to start/run and type MSCONFIG in the box. It'll show you everything that runs on startup of this PC and allow you to edit it.

___________
Tony Fabris

Jeez, you Linux geeks have no idea what current_user is about.

Oi! You accusing me of being a Linux geek? Outside, now! .

I'm the archetypal Windows geek. Anyone else here used Windows 1.0?



Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

Actually, I believe windows 1.0 = mac 512k.

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

Anyone else here used Windows 1.0?

Well, 'use' is perhaps a bit too strong a word when applied to Windows 1.0 (and some would argue Windows in general :), but yes, I did play with them and actually used a piece of data collection software that required them.

Cheers!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Yup, I actually developed a CD tester application on V 1.02 in the mid 80's. I still have the installation disks and a full SDK on disk, which cost as much as my Mini is actually worth now. I also have the pre-Apple ruling version of GEM 1.01 on disk, which is infinitely superior to both the Apple GUI at the time and Windows. Sad; the future could have been so different.

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015