This morning has been thoroughly wasted, purely because of AOL's delightful software. The callout was simple enough, and so was the problem. The BT voyager 105 (oh how well I know these modems now) had stopped synchronising with the exchange. A simple call to AOL tells me that the subscription had been cancelled on BT's end, but the AOL part of the subscription was still alive. Much probing by the Scottish pleb at the end of the line, and we find out it's BT's notification system that's norked, and it is working after all. Whilst on the phone to AOL, suddenly the modem wakes up and connects. Then disconnects. Then reconnects. Then disconnects. Then reconnects. You get the picture. The guy says to move the whole assembly to the master socket, so we can test the line that way, which involves almost "changing rooms" style of exodus into the hall. We get everything plugged in and working, and when I phone AOL again, they tell me to do a diagnostic of the modem. It comes back "modem not found"!
"Not a problem," says Irish pleb, "just uninstall AOL and then reinstall it."
So I do. halfway through the reinstall it asks to speak to the modem *it* should have installed the driver for. It hasn't. It hasn't got the files on the CD. I find the files, but Windows decides it can't install them. Stuff it, I'll just reinstall Windows.
So there you have it. I have a PC for wiping, after I've backed it up, and a fresh Windows install to go on.
All because of AOL.
