keskamess

I cannot believe all the trouble I am having with this POS OS. I have a brand new desktop with Vista preloaded. I am having a very hard time receiving emails with Windows Mail. I can send but not receive. I do get the window that shows 'receiving 1 of 3 messages', you can actually see the download begin and then it stops! I was on the phone with Sympatico for a record 5 hours over a 2 day period believe it or not. So I called Microsoft, where I was told that since it was OEM, I have to contact HP for help otherwise they would be charging me $79.00 for their assistance! I call HP and (no word of a lie) my call is routed to somewhere in India. Needless to say, they were of little help. I can't fault them, they did not 'design' this OS. Unbelievable. I have Sympatico high speed byt he way. No routers. I've changed every setting I could think of (timed-out, authentication, every POP3 in the book, you name it.

There are certain websites I cannot access. OSNN being one of them. So how did I get here, you may be asking? Well I had to go into my YahooMail that I used to sign up (by the way, this is an awesome spot to go to for help/guidance) and fortunately I saved my original sign up message. I used that original email and clicked on the link to 'finalize registration' and was able to finally get into this forum. I've been trying for 3 days from home with no successs until now, to get to this forum. I don't know why this site is blocked???

I cannot access Hotmail either. You know it's bad when a Microsoft browser is unable to access Hotmail. I am also unable to access Sympatico's webmail service. I can get to the log-in page but the second I enter my password and click 'log-on' it just stays there (hangs).

Norton was pre-installed, its removal was one of my first tasks when my system booted up for the very first time. I replaced it with AntiVir. I have even tried shutting everything down from Windows Defender, to Firewall, to AV and still no luck.

How I am able to be here is a miracle unto its own. I couldn't get here with Firefox either, I gave that a try. Thunderbird email doesn't work either (receiving email). I can get my email at my canada.com webmail (I just had to add the pop info.)

I'd like to up-grade back to XP, but I'm not sure I can with this hard drive??? My system is an HP Pav a6200n by the way.

A few other rants: long load up time, takes longer to reg on the network for some reason, can't see how defrag is progressing, could not load some software because I needed to "elevate", no 'Refresh' button, and so on and so on...

Sorry to sound like a complainer but I wasted an entire weekend with all of this. Any assistance would certainly be appreciated. Even suggestions to go back to XP.

Thanks for listening folks.

LordOfLA

These issues sound more like internet routing issues with your ISP or an intermediary carrier and not issues with the OS. I would take this up with your broadband provider or switch provider if you are not happy with the current one.

However please do not blame non-OS issues on the OS just because it is the current "in thing" to do. You seem to have a lot to learn before you start casting aspersions in every direction.

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j79zlr

Yea, no way its a problem with Vista, I mean its a final release OS from MS!

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LeeJend

If you can get back on... Search here I have a couple of threads about upgrading back to XP and the issues. They were for my Toshiba laptop but the process still applies.

Make sure you are logged on as an admin account. You can't do anything without that in VISTA. Note this violates "recommended good practice for VISTA."

You should not be having the web problems you are with Vista (lots of other problems yes, access no). Web access was fairly easy on my laptop, email setup took multiple tries before it would send and receive, Messenger IM was easy.

I'm running Eudora, Outlook XP (2003), IE7, and Firefox all with no issues. They should be recent versions, old stuff like Office 2000 is not compatible. Also any applications over 12 months old can not be depended on to run at all in VISTA.

If you can get to it check Sympatico's website they should have a step by step to get email going for the major mail clients. My mail is anuisance due to new security protocols and certificates my ISP requires.

Upgrading to XP - I recommend setting up for dual boot so you don't void your warantee. And besides, given another year or two MS will get VISTA working reliably and you may want to use it.
http://apcmag.com/node/5162/
Do not format the HD. Your recovery partition will be wiped. Doing the dual boot should not be a problem on a desktop, it gets messy on laptops becase they have too much proprietary hardware.

PS If you missed it j79 was being sarcastic. He is not a VISTA fan...

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LordOfLA

It should be quite obvious to anyone with even half a brain that none of the stated issues are OS related.

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zeke_mo

Have you tried to disable windows firewall, or maybe disabling any firewall software?

http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2...tion-in-vista/

There is a link telling you how to disable the firewall. Dont worry about it being a security issue, its not like it does anything in the first place

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technokid88

Its your internet, it just sucks. Are you on some kind of satellite internet access, technochild said he just got that it sucks really bad and he cant get to half the sites on the net.

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ray_gillespie

Yeah, it's either your HP computer, your internet or your third-party software. Vista has a load of problems but this doesn't sound like anything I've heard of before. I feel for you, I really do, but I think your problem is more complex than just a Vista bug.

If possible, I would consider taking your computer back to HP and seeing what they can do.

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keskamess

Well, I re-formatted (recovered) the hard drive and the net related stuff seems to be working now. OSNN, Hotmail and the Sympatico webmail logon opened fine. And all images are also showing up on the webpages (that also was not happening). So far, able to download emails (fingers crossed) too. It's weird that I have never had any difficulty with Sympatico in the past. But like someone suggested, they may not be up to par at their end either.

To those of you who kindly suggested that it may be ISP related, thanks for your suggestions. Perhaps I do have 'a lot to learn' LordOfLA. That's why I come here.

Thanks again folks for all the suggestions.

j79zlr

Let me get this straight, you reformatted and reinstalled, your problem went away. You didn't contact your ISP or exhange any hardware? That almost sounds like it was a problem with Vista. That is very odd.....

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LordOfLA

in the time it takes to format and install vista, any number of routing issues could have been fixed.

From the symptoms described, the issue was not OS related.

Do not persist in your vista hate spiel.

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j79zlr

Just saying thats some coincidence, thats all. Draw your own conclusions. Yea, persistent problems over the course of a few days. Reinstalled and they went away. You're right, sounds like a routing issue to me.

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LordOfLA

I'm still trying to figure out how you've come to the conclusion it was an OS fault when the stated symptoms indicate it was most likely a routing issue.

It can take days to fix an issue if configs appear to be correct and nothing seems wrong when a techie checks things out.

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