On The Road Internet problems
hafcanadian
Enthusiast - Level 1

At home we have a 6 yr. old Dell desktop running Windows XP SP1.  We connect to the internet via Verizon DSL and MSN Premium, with MSN Explorer browser.

We recently bought a Dell XPS 1350 laptop to take with us while traveling, and I'm a bit confused.  It runs Vista SP1.  On the road we connect to the internet via whatever WiFi is available.  Since the laptop hasn't been used at home yet, I didn't take time to see about loading MSN Premium onto it, nor did I do any configuring to Verizon on it (if I need to?).  So on the road I've found that Windows Live Messenger pops up in the lower right corner, and through that I can click on "messages" to get to my email Inbox via Hotmail, which doesn't provide me with my MSN Explorer "Favorites" list and the other things I've become accustomed to at home;  but at least I can get my emails and access My MSN.  Internet Explorer by Dell is on my desktop, but it requires extra steps and ends up with Windows Live Messenger anyway.

I've noticed that if I try to copy/paste an image into the body of an outbound email, copy and paste an entire received email to a new outbound one, or simply forward a received email to someone, the text goes in the new email okay but the image doesn't.  I don't know if that's due to some setting on my computer that needs changing (HTML?) or what, but it sure is a pain to not be able to send photos or graphics to people.  Methinks it may be another Hotmail thing, and that if I just had my MSN Explorer everything would work right.

Now, there've been pop-ups on this new laptop since we hit the road saying something about MSN changing everything over to a new web-based thing and junking all others, including MSN Explorer.  I've always despised Messenger since it came out since I had trouble with it at first and it slowed down my computer.  They keep changing these things on us so we have to relearn stuff and toss what we're accustomed to.  Windows Live Messenger apparently has been refined such that it doesn't negatively affect my uses, so I can tolerate it at least.  But all this new stuff at once, Vista, new computer, MSN changing browsers or whatever they're doing, Messenger... cheeez, gimmee a break here.  So here I am asking for advice.

We're on the road now.  Should I try to download MSN Premium to this laptop from Verizon's website, and will that give me access to my customized MSN Explorer features like I'm used to at home?  I suppose I'll have to go thru Verizon's maze of red tape to download.  Are they actually changing MSN Explorer to something else?  And will downloading MSN Explorer resolve the problem of images not copying into outbound emails, or is that more likely a settings issue within this laptop or Hotmail?

Thanks for any help with these frustrations.

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Re: On The Road Internet problems
nukefixer
Enthusiast - Level 2

My wifes laptop I  had downloaded MSN premium on it and it works fine.

My desktop runs Windows Vista Home Edition (wired) and her laptop (wireless) is running Windows XP SP3 and she has no problems with wireless or MSN.

In addition, I installed MSN premium on my company laptop and when I bring it home weekends, I sit in the kitchen at the table and I am online and able to use MSN through my home wireless.

Using Hotmail will get you your emails, but you'll need to download MSN Premium to be able to use all of its features.

As far as pasting images, I would also get a google gmail account, this works well for that, while you get MSN premium.

Hope this helps?

Gary

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Re: On The Road Internet problems
nukefixer
Enthusiast - Level 2

My wifes laptop I  had downloaded MSN premium on it and it works fine.

My desktop runs Windows Vista Home Edition (wired) and her laptop (wireless) is running Windows XP SP3 and she has no problems with wireless or MSN.

In addition, I installed MSN premium on my company laptop and when I bring it home weekends, I sit in the kitchen at the table and I am online and able to use MSN through my home wireless.

Using Hotmail will get you your emails, but you'll need to download MSN Premium to be able to use all of its features.

As far as pasting images, I would also get a google gmail account, this works well for that, while you get MSN premium.

Hope this helps?

Gary

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Re: On The Road Internet problems
hafcanadian
Enthusiast - Level 1

Thanks Gary, for responding.  Yesterday I "chatted" with Dell twice and Verizon once and got a lot of issues cleared up.  If I email them it can be awhile before I hear back, and when I do then several email exchanges have to take place sometimes to solve a problem.  If I phone them I have trouble understanding what they're saying with their south Asian accent.  So live chatting has become the method of choice for fixing things on the computer.  In fact, all 3 techs yesterday took control of the computer remotely, and I just pretty much just sat back and watched them do the fixin'. 

One Dell tech, frustrated by my inability to make the laptop's fingerprint reader work, I'm sure thought I was the dufus, after 15 minutes of having me repeatedly rub fingers over the scanner.  He acted as if he was in a hurry to go home or something, and messed up a couple of times trying to uninstall the fingerprint reader software and install a new one.  When I successfully scanned my fingerprints after the install, and he'd given me a hint about making the reader work better (which he should have done before the re-install so we could see if the hint would've fixed the problem), he pretty much said "Bye" and was gone before I could ask another question.  All along he thought I couldn't do the simple task of scanning my finger, then the new software worked fine, so the glitch was in the original software.  He was not a happy camper. 

Verizon's tech simply downloaded MSN Explorer, though it took quite awhile.  He had everything he needed to verify my subscription to DSL, so I didn't have to go from webpage to webpage filling out forms.  And now I have all the features I'm used to using on the PC at home, including my long list of "Favorites" and other custom settings made over the last few years.  And, yes, I had no trouble sending body-of-message photos to relatives last night.

Things are working much better, except we are in a campground using unsecured WiFi.  One Dell tech told me to talk to the WiFi administrator (campground management) about making changes to their router settings, but they apparently can't.  The campground is away from other houses and pretty much in the middle of cattle range, so the only problem would be from any campers on the network.  Management says, "no one we have in the camp is that kind of person".  So even though I have full security activated on the new laptop, anything I send out could conceivably be intercepted;  they don't encode the WiFi here because I guess they feel they don't need to - all campers are safe, right?  Okayyyyy.  So I'm frustrated cuz I can't do any financial work.  But I'm wondering, if everything on my computer and at the bank is encrypted, shouldn't I still be safe even if the local WiFi network doesn't use code?  Even if they were "secured" with a code, all the campers would have the code anyway, so it wouldn't be any more "secure"from that end.

-Joel

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