Can't Connect With Dial-Up
 

Alright, here's the problem:

I've moved back home for the summer which means I'm back to a 56k connection, bleh. That's not the real problem though. :p When I go to network connections, the first issue I have is that I'm unable to disable the LAN connections from when I was at school. It says that basically I'm not allowed to because its being used by another program.

So then, I tried to just go ahead and set up the modem connection, but when I get to the point to choose that option, the only thing available for me to choose is the broadband option, the modem is greyed out. I already found advice on that problem in this thread , and after doing what everyone suggested and following the link to the registry fix and making those changes, nothing was changed. I still couldn't get into the modem connection option.

So...if anyone knows how to turn off the leftover LAN connection, or how to get my computer to connect with a modem, I would <b>greatly</b> appreciate any help. As you can imagine, it's not very fun not being able to get online. :( :mad:

Oh, one more thing. I know the modem itself is working because I 'communicated' with it, so that's not the issue. And I suppose I should mention I'm running XP Pro, and the modem is a Lucent Win modem.

Blast, I just typed out my whole response and lost it by clicking the wrong button. Heh. I am le uncoordinated.

So, basically, what I said was that I have no idea WHY you're having that problem, but I can think of a few things to try to fix it.

1) Drivers. Have you tried uninstalling / reinstalling drivers? You said the modem worked correctly, so I doubt it's that, but the LAN driver might be an issue. If you just uninstall it, perhaps it will let you use the modem.

2) Internet Connection Wizard. I actually don't know if XP Pro has this, but it should (I think most versions of Windows have it). Instead of trying to go through the Network Connections, if there's a separate wizard, you might try it. I've had random problems that I couldn't explain before that I just circumvented by using a wizard, so it's worth a shot. Unless of course you're already using it, in which case this was a useless couple of sentences.

3) Physically removing the ethernet port. If it's attached to your motherboard, I wouldn't recommend doing this (:p), but if you have an ethernet PCI card, then you could try physically removing it. I can't say if this would help or not, but again it's worth a shot.

4) Try to figure out what program is using it. This probably should have been #1, but I was kind of thinking backwards after losing my other post. Anyhow, if something is trying to use your LAN connection, chances are it's trying to connect to the internet without telling you. And if it's trying to connect to the internet without telling you, chances are it's spyware of some sort. If you don't already have them, download and install Ad-Aware 6 and Spybot Search and Destroy (I think there's a sticky in this forum with links, but I'm too lazy to look right now). Run them and make sure your system is clean. If it is, and you're still getting the problem, it might be your email program, a P2P program, or a messaging program. Make sure to turn off the auto-email checker thing (if you have it running), and make sure you don't have any other programs that might be trying to access the internet running. If none of this works... I don't know what to say.

Again, I apologize for not being more informative, but like I said I can't think of anything that would CAUSE that specific problem (not being able to select the modem). I just hope you get it worked out. Good luck!

Two suggestions:

1) Try starting XP in "safe mode". That might allow you to get rid of the LAN connection.
2) Mooseman3000's #3 if your computer's LAN port is a PCI card.

Well, I greatly appreciate the help MooseMan3000, and oberon! :)

Unfortunately, most of those things I already tried, and even after I did them a second time, still no luck. :( However, I was able to finally turn off the LAN connections by simply uninstalling them, which I thought was good.

But now I still can't get my computer to let me set up a modem connection. :( Now that I've officially tried absolutely everything, I'll just have to give up, it's time for a reinstall, yay! :p

Thanks again for the help! Hopefully I'll be back online soon. :(