and incidentally...

[electricland]

My computer is definitely somewhat frelled. This, I suspect, is a result of getting infected with Blaster awhile back (arg arg arg). I'm all virus-protected now (although still lacking the Windows upgrades, 'cos I haven't had the time).

However: the latest fun thing it's doing is being unable to connect to the Internet. This is, I'm pretty sure, because Windows can't see the COM4 port, which my modem uses. At least, it doesn't show up in some areas and does in others. And there ends my technical knowledge, right there.

I foresee a fun time of taking home a laptop from work and connecting to Microsoft tech support side by side with my computer. Gaah. Or, I guess, I could track down one of my more technically savvy friends and beg. This is going to end up as a complete reinstall, I just know it, and I DON'T WANNA!

Doesn't help of course that this is a second-hand computer, upgraded from Win98 to Win2k, and with all sorts of software on it that I don't actually own. 'Course, if they HADN'T upgraded from Win98, the DVD player would probably work.

Gaaah. Sigh.

Comments

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

Oh bleh. Well ... just in case, you could backup the files you want to keep. With luck, you can find the install files for the things you don't own. (Unless they were installed from a bootleg cd...) Reinstalling can be a big pain. I've been down that road before, *twice*, with the last computer we had. No idea why; it just spontaneously decided to go bonkers. (And it used WinME. Ugh.)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Yeah... luckily, I haven't used this computer for much except Internet access. Oh, and email. Shit. I need some of that. Well, I can back it up, I suppose.

Thanks for the support... I've never encountered WinME, and from all I hear, I'm lucky in that!

[punmeister.livejournal.com]

Is there an error message of any kind?

Have you tried removing the modem from the hardware list and seeing if it gets autodeted and reinstalled?