How to Set-up a Dial-up Connection on Windows 95 and 98

If you have a Windows 95 or 98, setting up a dial-up connection manually is fairly simple. You will need a land line phone service, your user name and password of the dial-up Internet service you signed up for, a local access number, and telephone cord (preferably about 4-6 feet or less), and a dial-up modem (of course, you can probably use the one already installed on your computer). You need to have the phone cord plugged into the phone jack in the wall of the phone service, and the other end into the back of your computer or into the modem you are using to connect, and the modem connected to the computer.

1. First, open My Computer. You will probably find this as a shortcut on the desktop or on your Start menu. You can open any icons by double-clicking on them or right-clicking on them, then left clicking on Open.

2. Next, open Dial-up Networking. You will see all the connections (if any) that are currently installed on your computer. If you used a previous dial-up connection, you will find it here. You can remove dial-up connections by right-clicking on them, then clicking delete. You will also see an icon named “Make New Connection” in this folder.

3. Double-click “Make New Connection”. You will now be guided through the New Connection Wizard. The following steps will ask you basic questions about your connection options.

4. Under the line, “Type a name for the computer you are dialing”, type the name of the ISP who is providing your Internet service. You may use any name in this area that you wish, for example, if you want to make two different dialers, you can differentiate between the two by giving them connection names. For example, type, “ home” for the connection you will be using when you are home, to differentiate between that and a connection you use when you take your computer to work or on vacation, etc.

5. On this same page, you will see the heading “Select a device”. This is to choose what modem you will use for this connection. Usually you do not have to do anything here because you only have one modem, or it has already selected the default modem for you. If you are using a modem other than the one that originally came with the computer, you may need to select it from the drop-down list, otherwise, ignore this step.

6. Click Next. Now you will see the area to type the access number of the ISP's remote computer. You should have received a number from your ISP when you signed up, or selected one from their database on their website. You should call your ISP if you do not have an access number. If there are several numbers to choose from, write them all down and keep them in a safe place in case you need to change access numbers or recreate your dial-up connection later. Also, call your phone company to be sure that the access numbers you wish to use will be local. If they are not, you will be charged long distance fees for every minute you are using the Internet. Your ISP will try to give you a local access number, but they have no way to guarantee this for you, so it is your responsibility to check this!

7. Type the access number in the “Phone number” space the same way you would if you were dialing a local number. If you need the area code to make a local call, type it in the phone number space as well, leaving the area code box blank. You do not need to use the area code space because you will be disabling dialing rules later in these steps. Most ISP's no longer following dialing rules that were established when your computer's operating system was first built.

8. Click next. You will see a message saying the connection setup has completed.

9. Click finish. You will now be back at the Dial-up Networking window where you were earlier. You will now need to change some settings on your computer that are preset from the time when your operating system was first built.

10. Right-click on the connection you just made and left-click on Properties. In the middle of this page, you will see a “Use area code and Dialing Rules” option that has a check mark in the box to the left of it.

11. Click in the box to un-check the box, and click on the Server Types tab at the top of the page. The only things that need to be checked on this page is “Enable Software Compression” and “TCP/IP”. You can un-check all the other options that are checked on this page. Click OK.

12. Right-click on the connection you just made and click “Create Shortcut” if you want an icon for your connection on your desktop. You will get a pop-up warning, “Windows cannot create a shortcut here, would you like a shortcut to be placed on your desktop instead?” Click Yes.

13. Now the connection is complete. Close “Dial-up Networking” and open the new shortcut to your connection on your desktop. You will be prompted to enter your user name and password. Once you have done so, check Save password, if you wish, and click Connect.

14. You will receive a brief message that you are now connected and then the window will disappear. You can now open your browser to view webpages, or your mail client to receive email messages. If for some reason you do not connect, you may need to contact your ISP or a local technician to resolve whatever problem occurred if you cannot fix the issue right away. If you see an error message, write it down for your ISP before you call.