A friend of mine is having problems with connecting to his ISP.  I've been
trying to help him over the phone, but it's been almost impossible!
Here's the story:

He was connected thru his ISP (Concentric), browsing the internet, PC
locked up and had to reboot.  After reboot, could no longer dial out and Windows
gave him some type of error message about dial up networking not working (?).  He
ended up calling the ISP, they had him look in Network Properties.  No dial up
adapter found.  When the tech at the ISP had him delete everything there and try
to REINSTALL the dial up adapter, the computer locked up again.  Since dial
up networking is installed, each time he reboots windows, he gets the message
that Windows must install the dial up adapter.  Yet, each time he tries to do
this, the computer locks up and won't complete.  He does get a message that says
that Windows cannot install the dial up adapter.  We eventually got to the Add/
Remove programs/Windows Setup tab and deleted all the dial up networking
stuff under Communications.  That cured the problem of Windows always trying to
install the dial up adapter.  Go back and try to reinstall all the stuff
under Communications from the Windows Setup tab again.  Still no luck installing
the dial up adapter.  He even tried to reinstall Windows over the existing one
but got hung up again when he got to the part where Windows Setup asks him to
choose a Client.  It won't let him choose any of the clients (such as windows
family logon), and won't let the install continue.  There IS a 3com ethernet card
in this machine, but it's been disabled in Device Manager since he doesn't
use it for anything.
He has an IBM clone, 550 mhz, 4 GB HD, Creative ModemBlaster USB Modem,
128 MB RAM.

Could the dial up adapter files and or dial up networking files be
corrupt?  If so, wouldn't the reinstall of Windows fix that?  Or would he have to
reformat and reinstall??  We just can't seem to get past the installation of the
dial up adapter.  Since he's long distance, I can't SEE what is happening, so I
hope I've done a reasonable job of explaining the problem.  Can anyone offer
any suggestions?

Thanks!

Pam Leming
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