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Automatic Redial

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NiceButDim

Programmer
Feb 12, 2002
154
GB
Hi

A friend asked me (a supposed know-all) how to do something apparently simple on 98SE, and I couldn’t.

The problem is that his dial-up connection to his ISP shuts down every 2 hours. He is allowed to dial up again immediately however at the moment this requires him to manually click the ‘reconnect’ button on the dialog that pops up. He reckons that he should be able to get the system to redial automatically when the connection is dropped. Knowing very little about 98 I can only take his word for it.
Curiously, the dial-up dialog sometimes contains a checkbox labeled ‘Dial automatically’ (or something similar). But checking this makes no difference and indeed the next time the dialog appears the checkbox is again blank.
Any help would be appreciated.
 
I don't think you can reconnect automatically when the line is dropped, or should I say if you can, then it's beyond me and my experience.

I would recommend a change of ISP and definitley a download manager such as DAP with a RESUME feature. The air would be blue if I had 2 hour 10 minute download to complete and my ISP pulled the plug after 2 hours AND the received info was lost. Try this link:


Regards
Phil
 
I don't use it very often, but maybe you could throw something in the scheduler to run, say, every 2 hours and 30 seconds, that would cause Windows to reconnect.
 
Try setting the InternetOptions/Connections page to
Dial whenever a network connection is not present.
Works for me.
 
Hadn't thought of a download manager.
I'll point my man in the direction of DAP or GOZILLA.
Cheers.
 
gargouille,
Tried that, but it only brings up the dial-up dialog, it doesn't actually go ahead and dial until you click the connect button.
Since posting my question I been told by someone that it definitely is possible to get 98SE to redial when the line is dropped but there is an issue with whether you have a password setup for Windows itself.
Using a download manager should do the job anyway.
Thanks.
 
That it doesn't work for you is beyond me fixing...mine dials up automatically when the connection is dropped.
Sticks the dialog box up with the settings intact...but
I think you can even make that go away.

You're welcome, by the way.

You might also tell your friend if he runs a webcam that refreshes every 20 seconds or so he MIGHT not get dropped at all. Just run it minimized on the Taskbar...
And yeah, there are 3rd party proggies that do it...my preference is to master the software I have rather than adding 3rd party stuff I don't need.
Just me. LOL
 
It is standard practice in the UK for ISP's to Automatically drop connections after 2 hours for products other than "Broadband" and "Pay by the minute". In this respect it is not possible to avaoid the dropped connection.

Also, supposing you get the dial-up to automatically dial, you will encounter another problem (assuming you are doing downloads in this period). That is, due to the time it takes to log back on with the ISP, your download application will have called up multiple "dial-up" dialogue boxes before it logs on and your machine will just hang (in my experience).

By the way, to get the Auto dial-up setting to "stick" you need to have checked the box, logged on and then logged off. Logging back on will then be automatic.

Regards.
 
Thanks for all the advice. We’ve got around the problem by using Go!zilla. We schedule a small file to download every 15 minutes and if it finds that the connection is down it does the dial-up.

I think I tried just about everything to get the auto dial-up setting to stick (including shutting down and re-booting the box!) without success. But maybe I’ll try fiddling with it some more.

Thanks again.
 
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