Re: AOL 6.0 - Off Topic

Well...

It's been an interesting day.

AOL does VERY bad things to a Windows95 network stack.

Test system was an Athlon 700, running Win95b (includes DUN 1.3). No
customization was done of the operating system except as noted herein. This
machine has a permanent broadband connection to the Internet via an Ethernet
card.

My starting network configuration had the following:
Client for MS Networks
Ethernet Card Adaptor
Dial Up Adaptor
TCP/IP->Ethernet Card
TCP/IP->Dial Up Adaptor

I then installed my company's broadband IPSec/VPN software, resulting in the
following configuration.
Client for MS Networks
Ethernet Card Adaptor
Dial Up Adaptor
Internet VPN Adaptor
IPSec->Internet VPN Adaptor
TCP/IP->Internet VPN Adaptor
TCP/IP->Dial Up Adaptor
IPSec->Ethernet Card Adaptor

I know it looks a bit flakey. Basically we install IPSec as a pass-through
protocol. This has the effect of putting up a local firewall around the PC
(which is a whole 'nother discussion). Anyways, I then connected with this
configuration and made sure everything worked.

Then I installed AOL 6.0 taking all default options. During the
installation, it *insisted* on installing DUN 1.3, despite the fact that
this was already in place. It also required two reboots. When the system
came up after the second reboot, it immediately launched into AOL's
connection dialogue. I'll give them some credit... they found the broadband
connection and assumed that I wanted to use it. I connected with AOL, no
problem.

The fun started when I took a look at the network stack:
Client for MS Networks
Ethernet Card Adaptor
Dial Up Adaptor
Dial Up Adaptor #2 (VPN Support)
AOL Adaptor
AOL Dial Up Adaptor
Microsoft VPN Adaptor
NDIS/WAN->Microsoft VPN Adaptor
TCP/IP->AOL Adaptor
TCP/IP->AOL Dial Up Adaptor
TCP/IP->Ethernet Card Adaptor
TCP/IP->Dial Up Adaptor
TCP/IP->Dial Up Adaptor #2 (VPN Support)

Naturally, with our IPSec/VPN drivers uninstalled (without ASKING), my VPN
connection no longer worked. I then reinstalled our VPN software and was
able to get everything working again - both AOL and our VPN. So far, so
good.

My next test was to do the same thing over a narrowband (dial) connection. I
uninstalled our VPN software, and attempted to uninstall AOL. AOL does NOT
want to be uninstalled! It does not put an uninstaller on the Start Menu.
Instead, you must use Add/Remove Programs. Further, it doesn't clean up
after itself... it only removed the two AOL adaptors from the network stack
rather than restoring it to its original configuration.

I went into the stack and tried to manually remove these now-superfluous
entries. In the process, I managed to corrupt the IP Stack, and wound up
having to wipe the entire network (ALL components!) from CD. Not fun!

Oh.. one other INTERESTING side effect of this is that my test box no longer
recognizes my modem. I'm not sure what to make of THAT!

--IceWolf

PS: Results of doing this with a dial connection will be posted as soon as I
get my test box talking to the modem.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Captain F.M. O'Lary" <ctfuzzy(at)canopy.net>
To: "IceWolf" <icewolf(at)tampabay.rr.com>; "HWGBASICS" <hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 9:05 PM
Subject: Re: AOL 6.0 - Off Topic


> At 02:13 PM 2/5/01 -0500, IceWolf wrote:
> >If there is interest on the list, I'll post the results.
> >
> >--IceWolf
>
> Wow. I have to admit I'm curious. It may be *morbid* curiosity, but if
that
> counts too - send that report along!
>
> :-)
> Fuzzy.
> ______________________________________________________________
> Captain F.M. O'Lary
> webmaster(at)canopy.net
> If we're not supposed to eat late-night snacks, why is there a light in
the
> refrigerator?
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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