I have been off line for well over a week, since when out of the blue, my dial up AOL service ceased to work. Repeated attempts over several days to restore it via the 'migration CD' that had been issued about a month earlier, only resulted in a partial recovery on my old Toshiba (XP home) laptop, but nothing at all on my Dell XP pro machine.
I had to make a very hard call as to whether to carry on trying to upgrade to AOL broadband or go elsewhere. I decided that, as I felt that the AOL migration and poor software (AOL9.0VR was being bundled as a part of the migration exercise), had been responsible for this disaster, I wasn't going to carry on trying to resurrect the dead horse of AOL dial up. So as punishment for AOL for a very sloppy service, there was no way I was going to 'upgrade' to AOL Broadband.
I suspect that they could have just changed the contact number, to have migrated everyone without making them use the massive AOL 9.0VR, and this would have allowed everyone on all the old, but stable AOL versions, to stay with them. Instead they effectively tried to force everyone onto AOL Broadband and Vista, because the migration software was such a disaster for everyone not on the latest laptops or PC's i.e. Vista and Broadband enabled.
I no longer trust their software development anymore, because AOL 9.0 VR has been crap since last January when I tried and failed to get it to install, and it has obviously not been patched to suit non Vista, dial up clients, even though the issues were all well publicised. So after a bit of searching, and using the advice contained on the marvellous Martins Money Page I opted for O2 (they connected and provided the router for free ... only a 12 month tie in). Oddly I was able to register etc on my old Toshiba via AOL which then ceased to work the next day, so there was a grim irony in its last actions being the choosing of its successor ISP.
However here's where I hit a problem .... removing AOL (even when they have an uninstaller, it leaves a mass of AOL registry entries, removal of which start to imperil the running of the machine). At first I tried to clean the registry, but AOL was so pernicious that I was still getting AOL icons or warnings etc a week later, and didn't feel able to install Broadband until this was resolved.
Eventually I chose to back up files, folders, installations etc and then restore both laptops to their factory condition to clear the registry etc .... it speeds old machines up to do this, by making the registry clean after years of abuse. Of course the downside is that you have to add XP SP2, and SP3 and all the security patches as well as all the software of years ..... thankfully I keep install files for most downloads, but even so its a real ball ache.
Anyway I got it up to a reasonable condition and loaded the broadband. So far OK (much faster of course), but I still have to make it wireless. I have load the SSID and WEP codes manually ... any help appreciated ... and I have had IE close once unexpectedly ... so now I am loading all patches etc.
The reason for the blog on this is to explain the gap in the blog posts, and that it reminds me of my first blog DELL HELL .... sort of a full circle from Dial up to Broadband via AOL HELL.
Coincidences abound in life and this sort of felt like another one ...
I had to make a very hard call as to whether to carry on trying to upgrade to AOL broadband or go elsewhere. I decided that, as I felt that the AOL migration and poor software (AOL9.0VR was being bundled as a part of the migration exercise), had been responsible for this disaster, I wasn't going to carry on trying to resurrect the dead horse of AOL dial up. So as punishment for AOL for a very sloppy service, there was no way I was going to 'upgrade' to AOL Broadband.
I suspect that they could have just changed the contact number, to have migrated everyone without making them use the massive AOL 9.0VR, and this would have allowed everyone on all the old, but stable AOL versions, to stay with them. Instead they effectively tried to force everyone onto AOL Broadband and Vista, because the migration software was such a disaster for everyone not on the latest laptops or PC's i.e. Vista and Broadband enabled.
I no longer trust their software development anymore, because AOL 9.0 VR has been crap since last January when I tried and failed to get it to install, and it has obviously not been patched to suit non Vista, dial up clients, even though the issues were all well publicised. So after a bit of searching, and using the advice contained on the marvellous Martins Money Page I opted for O2 (they connected and provided the router for free ... only a 12 month tie in). Oddly I was able to register etc on my old Toshiba via AOL which then ceased to work the next day, so there was a grim irony in its last actions being the choosing of its successor ISP.
However here's where I hit a problem .... removing AOL (even when they have an uninstaller, it leaves a mass of AOL registry entries, removal of which start to imperil the running of the machine). At first I tried to clean the registry, but AOL was so pernicious that I was still getting AOL icons or warnings etc a week later, and didn't feel able to install Broadband until this was resolved.
Eventually I chose to back up files, folders, installations etc and then restore both laptops to their factory condition to clear the registry etc .... it speeds old machines up to do this, by making the registry clean after years of abuse. Of course the downside is that you have to add XP SP2, and SP3 and all the security patches as well as all the software of years ..... thankfully I keep install files for most downloads, but even so its a real ball ache.
Anyway I got it up to a reasonable condition and loaded the broadband. So far OK (much faster of course), but I still have to make it wireless. I have load the SSID and WEP codes manually ... any help appreciated ... and I have had IE close once unexpectedly ... so now I am loading all patches etc.
The reason for the blog on this is to explain the gap in the blog posts, and that it reminds me of my first blog DELL HELL .... sort of a full circle from Dial up to Broadband via AOL HELL.
Coincidences abound in life and this sort of felt like another one ...
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