Back in March of this year the BBC posted an article on their supersite about the problems with Microsoft Vista and access through the UK broadband providers."Other net service firms have also admitted that the appearance of Vista has caused some hiccups for users."
The problem is coming from the new system not being able to run the installation discs that are supplied. Now in May my family in the UK have purchased a new Acer laptop from Tesco and are still suffering problems getting online, all because of a disc.
The real problem is that nearly all of the providers in the UK send you an installation disc and an USB modem for service provision. The installation of the modem requires the disc and this is where the problem arises with Vista.
The dictionary.com entry for Vista has the following defintion.
"a view or prospect, esp. one seen through a long, narrow avenue or passage, as between rows of trees or houses."
"a far-reaching mental view: vistas of the future."
The intention from Microsoft was always the latter definition but the reality for the average UK end user is, unfortunately, the former.
This narrow view is this fear of letting people know the modem settings. The easiest solution for me is to give the user the modem settings and let them use that to configure, view a www window, their modem. This needn't even be a modem that supports wireless as the initial configuration is typically done over a cable anyway.
If the providers want to be helpful instead of bundling unreliable USB modems bundle a USB to RJ45 (ethernet) adapter for those people that don't have a LAN port on their machines..
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