Annoying ‘Connect’ pop-up (IE 6.0 Build 2600)

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I have two desktop computers and a laptop. On one desktop and the laptop, when I click a URL in a mail message, IE opens up to the appropriate Web page. On the other other desktop, I get an annoying message saying that the page can’t be accessed off-line, with a Connect button I have to click to get to the page. All computers are connected to a Cable/DSL modem sharing a RoadRunner connection. Presumably this message is coming from some obscure IE setting — how can I eliminate it?

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SInce you’re connected via DSL and RoadRunner this may not be the answer…but this might do the trick:

In Internet Explorer: Tools | Internet Options… | Connections tab…

Be sure the “Never dial a connection” option is selected.

HTH

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“Never dial a connection” is already selected (that was part of the RoadRunner setup).

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I’d say you are presuming correctly. Of course IE would never do anything flaky….

In the Internet Options/Connections tab, check to make sure the radio button for “Always dial my default connection” is not selected. It should read Never dial a connection. I have also gotten rid of this in the past by telling IE to “auto detect” settings – click on the LAN button at the bottom of the same tab and tick the checkbox for Automatically detect settings.

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“Never dial a connection” was already selected. I will give the “Automatically detect settings” option a try, although according to RoadRunner all the checkboxes on the LAN tab should be unchecked. Something must be different on this computer, and I can’t figure out what.

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Try/make sure you are set to check for a new version of the page every visit – in IE5 it’s under Tools | Internet Options | Temporary Internet Files > Settings

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I couldn’t find the equivalent setting in IE 6 — do you know what it is?

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Hmmm… it occurs when you click on a Favorites link as well? That would make Outlook an unlikely source… How about links on a webpage, a locally stored HTML document opened in IE, or a Word document?? And does the Message Box pop up in Outlook before IE is loaded — or only after IE has splashed on the screen?

Also, does the “Offline” icon appear in the Status Bar of either Outlook or IE when this box is displayed?? (See image).

If you are seeing the *second* box from above, then I have to believe it is not the “Autodial” entry — the first box was the Autodial MsgBox, the second one was for “WorkOffline”. This must be related to some error that is telling Outlook or IE that you are”offline” when you are not.

Let’s see if we can figure out what tells Outlook that you are offline…

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I can get the message when clicking on a link on a Web page too (haven’t tried the other things you mention). Also when clicking on a Web page that has been inactive for a while, even without clicking on a link. The “No connection” icon does appear in the Outlook status bar when I get the message. I don’t recall ever getting this message in Outlook alone, only when trying to open a Web page in some manner.

I have Outlook set to check for mail every 60 minutes — could that have something to do with it? Do I have to have Outlook checking for mail constantly to prevent this problem?

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I am approaching this from the Offline aspect now. I do not understand the “inactive for awhile” bit — is there some ‘timer’ that turns of your connection?

Outlook does appear to open IE and the Offline MsgBox appears to come AFTER IE has splashed on the screen. IE looks in this key to tell if the computer is Offline or not:

HKCUSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsGlobalUserOffline

BUT, that seems to be a dymanic key that changes with your online status. WHY is yours being modified and by what?? Check out that key at baseline.

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By “inactive for a while” I just mean that the Web page is open on my computer, but I haven’t been clicking or typing on anything in that page for a while — it is just sitting there. I don’t know why IE (or Outlook) thinks I am offline sometimes. With a cable modem, I am presumably always online, and that is how it works with my other two computers (all of them are plugged into the same Cable/DSL router attached to the cable modem).

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Could be it aggressive power management on the network card?

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I checked, but the NIC on this computer (3Com EtherLink XL PCI TPC NIC (3C900B-TPC) doesn’t have a Power Management tab on its properties sheet, just General, Driver and Resources. The computer does have Power Management, but it can’t be that, because it isn’t going into Sleep mode.

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Hi Helen-

I’m not sure which OS you have, I looked, but didn’t see it mentioned. Have you updated your drivers lately (for your modem, BIOS)?

I’m not sure which dial-up you are using, however, there are compatibility issues with AOL & RR. If you are using AOL, there is a ‘work around’, if you are using AOL Ver. 6 or 7, you should be able to select an option for cable/DSL, and it connects through your LAN not dial-up.

I’m not familiar with any of the others (I’ve used AOL & RR together before).

There should be an option (regardless of which ISP you use) to piggy back dial-up and Cable/DSL access.

Sorry if that’s redundant-

Kiddo

Is there any way the cables could be loose? (I know it’s a stupid question)

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On this partition I have WinME, with the most recent updates. There is no problem with the modem; the problem appears to be that Outlook is checking the RoadRunner connection first, then turning it off to check the dial-up connection, and not turning RoadRunner back on. The ISP is a local one, not AOL.

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I apologize if I offended you with elementary questions, I’m used to dealing with family members.

In Outlook, go to Accounts|Properties|Connection and change your settings to ‘connect through my local area network, click the ‘connect via modem’ if LAN is unavailable.

If I’m correct on the ISP, using RR is no problem and supported, they are open until 9:00pm. You can also use the web-based email (if I’m correct)

Hope it helps-

Kiddo

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She *should* have already tried to use the LAN setting and the Internet Explorer setting… but it is not clear what she really did try. If she is on a LAN, she might need to use the “Connect using my LAN” choice. Personally, I am on a 20 computer LAN and I have the “Connect using Internet Explorer or 3rd party dialer” radio-buttoned. It works fine. I get email from my old Dial-up ISP multiple times a day — and I never had a single problem. This computer is on DSL and my home computer — configured the exact same way — is on cable. Both of them connection via the Internet to my old Dial-up ISP and the both get my email fine…

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In theory yes, but, if she has a different way in the past that’s worked, perhaps not, that’s why I added that the ISP I spoke with said they’d be open until 9:00. Besides, we’re talking Microsoft here, in theory, nothing should go wrong. 🙂

I just hadn’t seen it mentioned before…only trying to help.

Kiddo

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As a Broadband & Dial Up technical support agent for a major Canadian ISP, I often receive calls with a similar problem.

A few notes here:
All power management should all be disabled or set to “never” for a desktop pc. Some network adapters will not fully recover from a low power state and the pc must be rebooted to reactivate.
Control Panel/Power Management: turn off hard drive, turn off monitor, sleep mode all set to “Never”

Try running the “Internet Connection Wizard” to connect via LAN with no proxies
Control Panel/Internet Options/Connections Tab/Setup Button & follow instructions

Also try reinstalling “Dial Up Networking” to reinstall winsock.dll & wsock32.dll to replace these files and to recreate relevant registry keys
Control Panel/Add Remove Programs/Windows Setup Tab/Communications/Dial Up Networking
Do not reboot after removing DUN, the pc may not boot properly until DUN is reinstalled

Remove and reinstalling TCP/IP will also help if it is corrupted or not functioning properly
Control Panel/Network/Configure Tab

Try “Repairing” Internet Explorer
Control Panel/Add Remove Programs/Microsoft Internet Explorer & Internet Tools/Add Remove Button/Repair IE

The following is pulled from my work troubleshooting notes:

No Connection Detected / “Work Off-Line or Try Again” Error Message
* As per Microsoft, this problem has been solved in IE 5.01 & higher, but they still occur from time to time, and the following fixes should be safe on any version of IE.
1 open REGEDIT
2 edit the following Registry Values located in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWebCheck
change load LCE from YES to AUTO
change load Sens from YES to AUTO
3 delete the LOADWC Registry Value from: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun
NOTE: NOT deleting the above will cause the LoadWC applet to run at startup, changing the previous settings back to YES, thus defeating the fix.
4 close the Registry Editor and Restart the computer

Instead of deleteing the loadwc reg key, I prefer renaming the file to loadwc.old.exe, as some programs require this file in order to execute properly. Renaming a file is easier than rebuilding a reg key.

I trust this will be of assistance.

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While that is an interesting list, it seems to fail to address the source of the problem. The source — as best we can tell from the limited information given to us by the poster — is Outlook.

I have asked Helen many times for more information on her problem — such as the response to links in Word documents — but she seems very tight-lipped or simply too busy to respond. Clearly she is too busy to call her ISP. If you notice, after much prodding she does reveal the following:

“If there is no offline icon in IE, I can click a link and it works fine. After a while (I haven’t tested to find out whether it is a specific period of time) apparently IE goes offline, and then I get the popup message. I think it may be because I have IE set to check my mail every 60 minutes.”

The problem is occurring because Outlook (not IE) is checking her mail via Cable and Dial-up. Somewhere during this transaction the registry is modified in a very simple manner — a zero is changed to a one here:

HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsGlobalUserOffline

This blocks her Internet Connection and this leads to the “Offline warning”.

This is *not* an an issue of: Power Management, Winsock.dll, Wsock32.dll, TCP/IP, Internet Explorer, or WebCheck (subscriptions and user profiles). I will backstep a second. WebCheck is unlikely unless she has offline content that needs to be synched to an Internet source — and she has never mentioned this.

While your shot gun approach may keep your ISP users busy for awhile, it will not likely resolve this specific issue. Sorry, I know your intentions are good, but this thread is full of far too much extraneous information — and mostly from me. It has been difficult enough to get to the bottom of this problem.
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Helen, everyone I ask agrees — you cannot use both the Cable and the Dial-up without this occuring. It appears this is simply not possible. The Dial-up Connection apparently takes precedence by default.

The only things close to this on the Microsoft site is this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…b;EN-US;q293040%5B/url%5D

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> The Dial-up Connection apparently takes precedence by default.

Coincidentally (?), a colleague of mine told me yesterday that her husband’s cable connection became unusable when he initiated a dial-up connection. She also said that their neighbor knew a solution: while on the dial-up connection, you can access a dialog that indicates whether the dial-up connection is the default Internet connection. Once that is turned off, initiating the dial-up connection does not interfere with the cable connection.

I haven’t had any opportunity to see the relevant dialog or experiment with my own computer (don’t have an analog phone line in my office) to see if I can replicate or confirm in a modem-and-LAN scenario.

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I have always want to try this on my machine, but my old dial-up service is now completely web-based and there is no longer a dial-up number. Would you be willing to run a Registry Monitor when Outlook tries to download email? This way we could actually SEE what program is coming in and modifying the GlobalUserOffline key.
If there was anyway for me to do this, I would have done it already!

It looks like the actual .dll that has the power to write to this GlobalUserOffline value is also Wininet.dll. Of nore, both IE and Outlook open and use this .dll when they are running.

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I am sorry to mislead you. I understood your meaning of “inactive for awhile”, I just did not understand your computer’s response. It is like those Dial-up services that throw you off if you haven’t been using the connection for awhile. I have never, ever heard of that on a cable connection. I cannot think of a place where this could be set in IE.

HF: “I can get the message when clicking on a link on a Web page too (haven’t tried the other things you mention). Also when clicking on a Web page that has been inactive for a while, even without clicking on a link. ”

Does that mean that this happens randomly while clicking links on a web page, or *only* after periods of inactivity? When it happens, is the “Offline” icon in IE’s Status bar??

I still would be interested in how links in Word or a local HTML document work…

HF: “The “No connection” icon does appear in the Outlook status bar when I get the message.”

OK, so that tells us that the connection is truly broken — and it is not just an erroroneous pop-up MsgBox. But why is it broken? Try this: open an email with a hyperlink in it. Make sure the “Work Offline” icon is not in the Status bar. *Before* you click the link, also go to the File Menu and make sure there is no check next to Work Offline. Then try the Hyperlink. Does the “Work Offline” icon then appear in the Status after you click the link?? Or does the link go through?

HF: “I have Outlook set to check for mail every 60 minutes — could that have something to do with it?”

Only if there really IS some timer that is watching for periods of inactivity…

Got to get home to the kids. I’ll look into more later. There must be an answer.
__________________________________________________________________-

OK, “Work Offline” icon will appear in all programs — IE, Outlook, and even Outlook Express — if you click “Work Offline” in ANY one of those programs. Also, clicking “Work Offline” in any of these program will modify the registry value:

HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsGlobalUserOffline

This is a Dword value that functions like a Boolean variable. There is only “0” (online) and “1” (offline). Adding or removing a check from the “Work Offline” File menu command will toggle this value between 0 and 1. Since all programs seem to work to control this value, the name is appropriate — ‘Global’UserOffline.

Modifying this registry value is necessary AND sufficient, to trigger the Offline/Online toggle. Therefore, the ONLY way your Outlook program could trigger that “Offline” MsgBox to dispaly is to have this registry value set to “1”. If you did not personally change this — by clicking the “WorkOffline” File Menu, then something else must have. There is no other answer that I can see.

Also of note, I have located the file which contains the MsgBox that you see when you try to connect. It is the “Wininet.dll” file in the System/System32 folder. If this file is missing or corrupt, then this and other important Message Boxes would not work.
___________________

So, now we can at least get a better idea of what is happening. Outlook (or likely any other client) calls on IExplore.exe to open the link. As IExplore.exe is loaded it queries the “GlobalUserOffline” key in the registry. If this key is set a one, then the wininet.dll library is called upon to display the “Offline” Message Box.

Now the question remains — what is causing the “GlobalUserOffline” key to change from 0 to 1??

I have been installing Outlook2K on a Win2K box at work to see if there is anything unique about these versions… [Add: there is NOT].

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Jscher has a good idea — perhaps the NIC is being turned off at a predetermined interval — and therefore breaking your connection. I would guess that setting would be most useful on a laptop, but it could have been inadvertantly set on your desktop. Check it out.

Just some more crazy thoughts. OK, you DO have a timer that is going off intermittently and this could be the cause of your problem. That timer is Outlook. Outlook is checking for messages every sixty minutes. Could the ‘period of inactivity’ just so happen to be about sixty minutes?

When Outlook checks for email, the program is opened in some ‘reduced’, windowless state. You don’t see the program ‘open’ per se, yet the executable file is running in the background and trying to download your email. Is there any way that Outlook can be configured to open in an “Offline” state??

The answer appears to be yes, but the set-up is not something that I think you would have done randomly — could someone else have set up your Outlook to open Offline??

Here are some of the instructions:

1) Launch Outlook and login with your username and password.
2) Click on Inbox.
3) On the Tools menu, click Services.
4) In the “The following information services are set up in this profile” box, click Microsoft Exchange Server.
5) Click Properties, and then click the General tab.
6) Choose one of the following options:
— To always start Outlook offline, choose the Manually control connection state radio button, and then click the Work offline and use dial-up networking radio button under Default connection state.
— To choose each time you start whether to work offline or online, choose the Manually control connection state radio button, and then select the Choose the connection type when starting check box.
— To have Outlook automatically detect whether you are offline or not, click the Automatically detect connection state radio button.

Microsoft also talks about using Outlook offline here. BUT… as best I can tell from a quick glance at these, they seem to be talking about creating a *special* “Offline Folders” and/or .ost files to use specifically for this purpose. As I said, it does not seem likely that your Outlook would have mutated this way randomly. [But perhaps there is some Darwinian survival advantage to keeping Outlook offline! ].

Your problem does NOT appeat to be a frequent issue — I can find little else of interest dealing with the subject. However, I am not sure I can think of a more logical solution…

At this point, I think you need to prove whether or not Outlook is the problem. I would do this:

1) Set up Outlook to NEVER automatically check for messages. Message retrieval should be manual only. This may be found under Tools|Options|Mail Delivery|Mail account options.

2) Make sure there is no check next to “Work Offline” in the Outlook File menu. Close Outlook for awhile.

3) Use IE and click on multiple links and Favorites URL’s. Take a break for awhile (over 60 minutes) and do it again.

4) Create a Word document with a hyperlink. See what happens when you click a hyperlink in Word.

5) Verify that without Outlook running, the problem either is eliminated or still recurs.

Until you can prove that Outlook is innocent, this is one case where I have to assume guilt first…

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If there is no offline icon in IE, I can click a link and it works fine. After a while (I haven’t tested to find out whether it is a specific period of time) apparently IE goes offline, and then I get the popup message. I think it may be because I have IE set to check my mail every 60 minutes. It checks mail on my cable email address, then dials my dial-up ISP and checks mail there, and then disconnects from the dial-up connection. I think it may also be disconnecting from the cable connection at that time. Is there some way I can set it to never disconnect from the cable connection, but connect and disconnect from the dial-up connection every hour?

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Ahhh! That explains it. You are not allowed to have two Internet Connections at the same time. So, whenever your Outlook opens to check your email, it severs your Cable Connection and uses a Dial-up Connection to retrieve your mail. Once it has your email, it closes your Dial-up Connection — but it is not smart enough to re-connect to your Cable for you.

One big question — why are you using a Dial-up Connection for your email?? Why can’t you have it use the Cable Connection?? It would be much faster…

I think the solution lies into setting up your Email account in Outlook. Go to Tools|Accounts…|Mail tab and select (double-click) the mail account in question. Go to the Connection tab and select “Connect using Internet Explorer’s or 3rd party dialer”.

I think that will do it! Sorry for the long winded approach, but it never crossed my mind that you would be using Dial-up AND Cable!! Cheers.

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Actually, when I click Send and Receive Mail, Outlook first gets the RoadRunner (cable modem) mail, then dials up the ISP to get that mail. I am keeping the dial-up ISP because lots of people still have my old email address, and as a backup. Also, it comes free with my Web site hosting. Apparently, after disconnecting from the dial-up connection Outlook doesn’t activate the cable connection again, as it should.

I don’t think the change you suggest would work, because I am in fact connecting to the cable modem via my network (by means of a Cable/DSL router), so for the Road Runner cable connection I need the Connect using LAN option.

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If your dial up is a POP3 type emailer you should be able to get your email from from the cable connection. You just need to add it to the Outlook under accounts. But if it is AOL or MSN type you maybe up the creek.

Who is your dial up ISP?

Also some of these ISP provide another method of connecting to their servers fronthe internet, i.e., ATTBI has a connection from their home page.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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I do get email through my RoadRunner cable connection. I have two Outlook accounts, one for cable and one for the dial-up ISP, and I get mail through both of them.

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The Dial-up ISP may still have a POP3 mailbox that you can access from the Internet. Just because it is a Dial-up ISP does not mean you MUST Dial-up to access your mail. I have accessed my “Dial-up” email account for MANY years using my cable connection.

It is as simple as calling your ISP and asking them if this is possible…

Jeez, if needed, tell me what your ISP is and I will call them for you!!!

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I will investigate this possibility.

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Helen,
I have NetZero, NoCharge,(dial up’s), my own domain, and attbi accounts. They ALL are accessed using the cable connection. The only time I use my diial up’s is when the cable is down and I need online.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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The last thing I want is another email address . I would like to have everything from one provider (the original one I joined about 10 years ago), but it was bought by a larger company, and stopped Web hosting, so I had to get my Web site from another (linked) provider, and then to get broadband I had to get another email address (from RoadRunner). I am keeping the old email address because lots of mail still comes to it, and it is free with the Web hosting.

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C’mon, Helen, give us the name of your local ISP. I will be happy to make the phone call for you. Just because they are a Dal-up ISP does not mean they don’t have a mailbox that you can access via the internet. Sheeesh!!

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You should be able to get to your “Dial-up” email through their Internet POP3 address. I do not think you can use a Dial-up Connection and expect Outlook to re-connect to your Cable connection. This is having your cake and eating it too!

Contact your ISP and find out what settings you need to retrieve your email via their POP3 mailbox on your cable connection. There must be some way to do this… otherwise you are stuck with that Offline Message Box…

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Possibly you can change the order in which they are checked. Might want to ask on the Outlook board about that one.

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RoadRunner is checked first; I will see if I can change the order. That might take care of the problem (if it can be done).

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Just to get a clearer picture of the set up, what is the OS and what is the Mail Client. Are you talking about Outlook, OutlookExpress or something else? Also, what about a link in a Word Document? Does the same thing happen, or does it only occur in an email message? (Therefore, is the problem limited to your mail client or is it more global).

There seems to be a miscommunication between your mail client and your Internet connection. I am not entirely sure the problem will lie with IE — so don’t discount other programs (such as the mail client) being responsible. Whose job is it away to notify the mail client that you have an open internet connection? At which point does the Message box pop-up — before or after IE has opened?? That might be helpful.

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Perhaps is would be instructive to look at what happens when a hot link is clicked from within Outlook. This is Win98/OL98, but the process should be similar on other systems.

Registry keys & values accessed/queried by Outlook:

HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerShellExecuteHooks
0xC19AA520{AEB6717E-7E19-11D0-97EE-00C04FD91972}InProcServer32
0xC19AA520{FBF23B40-E3F0-101B-8488-00AA003E56F8}InProcServer32 (shdocvw.dll)
0xC1895680SHDOCVW (shdocvw.dll)
HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionSubVersionNumber
HKCRInterface{EAB22AC1-30C1-11CF-A7EB-0000C05BAE0B}Typelib
HKCRInterface{b722bccb-4e68-101b-a2bc-00aa00404770}ProxyStubClsid32
HKCRInterface{79eac9c4-baf9-11ce-8c82-00aa004ba90b}ProxyStubClsid32
HKCRInterface{000214E6-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}ProxyStubClsid32
HKCRInterface{93F2F68C-1D1B-11D3-A30E-00C04F79ABD1}ProxyStubClsid32
HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAlwaysUnloadDll
HKCRhttp
HKCRhttpURL Protocol
HKCRhttpshellopenCLSID
HKCRhttpshellopenddeexecapplication
HKCRhttpshellopenddeexectopic

Registry keys & values accessed/queried by Iexplore:

HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMainAllowWindowReuse
HKCRhttpShellFolder
HKCUAppEventsSchemesAppsExplorerNavigating.current
0xC19AA520{53BD6B4E-3780-4693-AFC3-7161C2F3EE9C}InProcServer32
HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerStreamMRUMRUListEx
HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerStreamMRU45
0xC19AA550Streams45CabView
HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorerClassicShell
HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesRatingsKey
HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings5.0CacheExtensible Cache
0xC19AA7E0EnableAutodial (*this was queried three times)
HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsZones21A10
HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlServiceProviderServiceTypes
HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetServicesVxDMSTCPDomain
HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetControlCommAlias
0xC29DF120PORTNAME
0xC29DF120FRIENDLYNAME
HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetControlSessionManagerKnownVxDs
HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetServicesVxDMSTCPAllowUnqualifiedQuery
HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetServicesVxDMSTCPMaxDomainsSearchListSize
HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetServicesVxDMSTCPSearchList
HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetServicesVxDMSTCPNameServer
HKLMSoftwareClientsNews(Default)
0xC19AA7E0EnableAutodial
HKCR.php
0xC29BA330AutoRxMode
0xC29BA330UserAutoRxMode
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I think the one that stands out is “EnableAutodial”. Could you search your registries on the various machines and see if this value is different or the same?? Additionally search for just “Autodial” and see all that comes up. More information is better!
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Hmmm… I found “EnableAutodial” in two places (Win98):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEConfig0001SoftwareMicrosoftwindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings
HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings

If I change these form “0” to “1”, I get the first “Connect” box below. Only if I click the “Work Offline” button do I get the second box. Are these boxes similar to what you are seeing?? I think you are describing something like the second box, correct?
_______________________

If you are on XP, you might just peak at this:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertz…ust/cosden1.asp%5B/url%5D

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I am using Outlook 2000, SR-1 (full version). The problem occurs when clicking a link in a mail message (such as the message from LoungeAdmin with the link to this thread), and also when clicking a favorite link in an IE window which has been inactive for a while. The message is the lower one. On my other computers, which don’t have this problem, I am generally running Office XP, and rarely use Outlook, so maybe the problem lies with Outlook, not IE.

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Hooray for you, MRUCKER! Not for all the code, most of us find that pretty useless. But at the end of the message you gave the link to the MS instructions for fixing this problem in XP. At my house we thank you. Both our computers, connected by cable modem to the Internet, offered to dial up every few minutes. We went in and clicked the “never dial a connection” boxes (the one in IE and the one in the Internet Options control panel) a dozen times a day. And a dozen and one times a day, the boxes unclicked themselves and shifted without any human assistance to “dial when no connection is present” and for some reason XP thinks there is never a connection present. Although there always is. There must be others out there with this problem, I wish Woody would feature this fix in his XP column sometime. And thanks again for passing it on.

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Outlook 2000, SR-1, running on WinME. I have only experienced this with links in mail messages, but it might occur with Word links too. The message pops up before IE is opened. I think it has to do with the fact that I have 2 mail accounts, one RoadRunner (cable modem), and one dial-up, and when I send and receive mail, first the RoadRunner account is checked, then the dial-up. I think that turns off RoadRunner, until I click the message. How can I activate the RoadRunner connection again after checking the dial-up connection for new mail?

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Boy is this old…

Once you access the Dialup Connection, the GlobalUserOfflline value is set to “1” in the registry. I don’t think the problem is “activating” Road Runner, instead it is modifying this value.

I can give you a program that will do this, but then that entails running another program only to avoid having to click an “OK” button! Alternatively, I can give you a VBA Macro that allows you to do this as a ‘button’ on the toolbar — so perhaps this would appeal to you. But that just changes the position and timing of the button you need to click…

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Yes, this is an old thread. I logged on to post another message and just checked it to see if anyone had come up with a brilliant solution. I still need both my cable modem and dial-up connection, and Outlook and IE are still put into “Work Offline” mode after checking both (I haven’t figured out a way to get Outlook to check the dial-up connection first, which would solve the problem). Clicking the Yes button on the dialog isn’t that much of a nuisance, so any solution would have to be easier (basically, eliminating the switch to Offline mode in the first place).

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Can you write a Macro that will:

1) Check your Cable account.
2) Check your Dialup accout.
3) Reset the WorkOffline value (Reg.Write…)

…and use the Macro to periodically check your messages??

You may need to broadcast the “Setting Have Changed” command afterwards — to reset all open windows. More specifically, “HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SETTINGCHANGE”

(See some of my other threads for details…)

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If I failed to suggest this previously, see if your dial-up ISP has a method by which you can check your mail over the DSL connection. With my ISP, for example, this requires using the authentication option and slightly different server names. Here’s the general idea:

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I think we mentioned that earlier, but my recollection was that she did not have that option. I believe she told us she HAD to use dialup. (No, I have no desire to read through this entire thread to make sure.)

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