AOL / Windows connectivity problems?

[•-BLaCKouT-•]

Just been round to a mate's house who's having problems with the above. The trouble is I don't use AOL so I'm not sure if it's Windows causing the problem on it's own, or a combination of the two...

He's got one computer with three user-accounts set up on it. 1 Administrator (for him and his wife) and 2 'limited' user-accounts (1 each for his kids). His AOL setup also has 3 accounts (one for him, 1 for each kid).
He's had this setup for about 5 months now and it's been fine until...

Within the last week, his kids haven't been able to get online from their user-accounts. When you try to connect, AOL brings up a window saying:
Attempt 0 [Home]
And just hangs there, so that you have to Ctrl+Alt+Del to end it.

Now when you're logged in to the Admin account, you can connect to all three AOL accounts. When you're logged into a 'limited' account, you can't connect to any. So the problem's not at the AOL end as such, it's something to do with the 'limited' user-accounts.

In order to get round it temporarily, I've changed his kids user-accounts to Admin, and everything's working peachy. In the long-run though, my mate doesn't want his kids to have Admin accounts in case they accidentally uninstall something or make some kind of arse-up that'll affect the whole computer. So to get to my question:

Does anyone know what to change in the 'limited' account's setup to allow internet connection?

He's running XP Home (not sure which SP though). He's also got McAffee Personal Firewall on all 3 accounts but it says AOL is secured fine for access etc.

Thanks in advance folks...

:) B.

[narfblat]

I'm pretty sure its windows only, not a combination of windows and AOL. My parents' computer used to have 1 passworded Administrator user-account and 5 limited users and used Mstar as an ISP. We were only able to go online through the Administrator account, and some games (including Jedi Outcast) wouldn't work an the limited user-accounts. My brothers and I complained until my parents changed the setup to only 1 user-account.

Your friend should just tell his kids not to be stupid, and he should make back-ups of important files.

[Astrotoy7]

You need to get BongoBob in here, he's the resident AOL expert..... :D

I use a bonafide aussie ISP, bugger AOL to a fiery hell :p

mtfbwya

[BongoBob]

Originally posted by Astrotoy7
You need to get BongoBob in here, he's the resident AOL expert..... :D

I use a bonafide aussie ISP, bugger AOL to a fiery hell :p

*looks at avatar and sig image*

Damn straight.

Tell your friend to ditch aol. If it weren't for my parents, I would have gotten rid of aol a looooooooong time ago.

And btw, it's probably aols fault. Everything is aols fault.

Want a better internet? Come to ameerica online. Yeah, BS. More like, "Want to go so crazy that you rip your testicles out through your nostrils and hang them from your rear view mirror? Come to america online."

[El Sitherino]

Switch to netzero for only $9.95 a month.


<_< *shrugs* Tell them to get cable, or atleast dsl. Yahoo! DSL is pretty good.

[•-BLaCKouT-•]

They've got DSL. ;) It's AOL Broadband.

Hell, it was me who told my mate not to go with AOL in the first place, but he went and did it anyway. :rolleyes:

Mind you, I also told him that he could get AVG Anti-virus for free as he was going to use his free trial on Norton. "When the trial runs out they'll want you to pay, and Norton's a bugger to get off your system" I said. Guess what he did? :indif:

I've gone with narfblat's advice (which I'd told him as a temprary measure) and told him to make a restore point and make sure his kids don't go installing diallers etc. The real problem is that he doesn't know jack about computers.

Cheers anyway tho folks,
:) B.

[El Sitherino]

Originally posted by •-BLaCKouT-•
They've got DSL. ;) It's AOL Broadband.
AOL's AOL, you need to beat him everytime he does stupid things.

[RebelScum!]

One answer...Aol sucks! I hate it...even though I don't have it but its terrible...

[GothiX]

No personal experience with AOL here really, but if you want to be sure it's not the connection, set up one of those 56k quickie test discs.

[•-BLaCKouT-•]

I'm actually pretty sure it's Windows. it's some difference between an Admin user-account and a 'limited' user-account.

Just don't know what.

Ah well, b******s to it :p

B.

[BongoBob]

DSL or not, crap is aol is crap.

Please, slap him once or twice for me :)

[•-BLaCKouT-•]

Will do! :xp:

B.

[BongoBob]

Thank you :)

Oh, and if that doesn't solve his problems, slap him once or more every day until he get's rid of aol :)

If that doesn't help, well he has kids don't he :xp: