Tech help please

[Iceni]

I have spent two years with dial-up and an Olitec modem which although quirky, if a set procedure is followed you 'can' shut down the PC without having to pull the plug. I bought a new PC when they said we would get broadband and almost a year later it is here.

I bought a cheap Olitec ADSL modem while waiting for the Tiscali Triway box (CT633) and it and the network worked fine.

Connected the CT633 and have inherited a couple of files or a couple of files were corrupted (they did not come with the modem so obviously came via the net at some point during installation, one I was able to turn off via MS config). Now I am left with 'hiddenfaxwindow' which is hanging the machine and also at times stopping me turning the machine off - so I am back to pulling the plug out of the back. I have spent hours on the net over this hidden window - loads of info, even from MS but no way of solving the problem. Now I can run old machine on broadband via network with no probls but as soon as I turn on new machine after some time the whole thing will hang and a total reboot follows.

I have downloaded Task terminator and can turn off 'hiddenfaxwindow' but that removes everything except the wallpaper and I have to literally pull the plug.

On loading the CT633 it was not happy - my version of IE was too modern and not in French, so I used the USB connector and let Windows find it and load the driver then I got it loaded. Others with brand new up to date XP also have problems. Some manage to load it via the ethernet cable (modem to machine) but as I run a netgear network (which works perfectly with the CT633) I prefer this method.

I have to rebuild the machine that is working as I need to update to MS Professional and load the latest security fixes so I have to fix the machine with the problem (which has all the latest MS updates and was bought as a stable backup to this one).

Any suggestions please apart from a total rebuild of the new machine with CT633 attached.

If I did not have free phone calls with the Triway I would go back to the Olitec router like a shot. - That also is not XP compliant but it did at least work consistently. I think the problem is the 'hiddenfaxwindow' and not the router - all the other incidents on the web over this hidden window seem to give the same problem. I use Task Terminator to turn this machine off and this does at least stop the hanging problems that I was getting most of the time when I tried to close the PC down. This PC has very little on it at all but some things I cannot replicate.

Thank you very much to anyone who can shed any light on this problem. I 'used' to be in IT and had the time and got paid to 'rebuild the ruddy thing' now I lose time and money everytime the problem arises.

I also cannot run the Netgear network with the individual XP firewalls on - I know the router has a firewall so presume that this is the reason.

[Deimos]

The hidden Fax window may be related to a fax printer driver that is looking for the old dial-up modem. Normally the fax drivers detect a missing modem without problems. Don’t know if this might relate to your shutdown problems.

A NAT firewall on a network should not normally case a problem on a network, though I have experiences some “dodgy” ones mess up some devices. For example, I tried one NAT firewall box once that “took-out” all Intel Print Servers on a network (in the days when separate print server boxes were more common rather than network cards built-in the printers).

If you are accessing the network through an “external” (i.e. Ethernet rather than software) router you should not need any drivers on the PC – just modify the IP parameters for you network connection to give it the IP address of the router. You may need to add the DNS address as well (e.g. the same IP address as the router if the router includes a DNS – otherwise the ISP DNS address). That should be it – no drivers to load, nothing.

Or just stick with the router that works. (French local and national calls are pretty cheap and unless you make a lot/very long calls within France it isn’t always worth the hassle. Alice’s International rates are pretty expensive).

Ian

[Iceni]

Hi Ian

No fax system has ever been installed on this machine. I reformatted the hard disk when I got it (it had French XP) and loaded a legal copy of XP Professional and it has had all the updates since. Office is loaded as are other products I use but none with fax capability.

The research I have done shows that this 'hiddenfaxwindow' is one of three hidden windows that have the ability to take a full screen shot of the current screen at any point and send it... - it looks like the whole thing freezes because it cannot send it anywhere or it is just in memory and it cannot be closed down so the machine will not shut down. The view of some of the techies I have spoken to is that now I have it, any modem will be affected as it could well be the PC is the problem.

Dell have this on their site and it is typical - loads of people have this problem BUT no-one can come up with an asnwer - http://delltalk.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=si_hijack&message.id=894 I have this horrible feeling that a complete rebuild is going to be the answer. Oh, I have also never loaded anything from HP onto the machine.

Thanks again for all your help

[Deimos]

Check if you have the Fax service installed and if so is it running. If it is there and set to anything like “automatic”, change this to manual (or disabled or something). The Fax service is part of Windoze (or Office). It is often difficult to tell where these things are from as when you get/install something you often get several related things installed as well (I guess otherwise the list of options for an installation would be ludicrously long).

You may be having two problems. The router should not need any drivers of software as it is just an IP device on your network so why it needed drivers confuses me (though it would need drivers if connected via USB to your computer) – as an Ethernet router it should not need anything. Provided you have the UPnP services going on your network you should be able to see the router (in windows Explorer) and configure it via that (almost certainly the node for the router will open a web configuration page).

My thoughts would be that this is caused by the Alice drivers stuff you loaded.

If you re-build then I would not load any drivers for the Alice router. Just load the UPnP services and configure it as a IP router (as part of your IP stack). I guess how much work it is to re-build depends on how much stuff you have on the PC. I tend to have a natural reservation about re-building, but it can often be quicker than ploughing on trying to solve difficult stuff (particularly if you can do it to a 2nd disk drive and thus have no risk of losing stuff.

Ian