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Help required by a non techy - Paul Robinson (8th Feb 2005 - 10:14:39) Having recently signed up for broadband connection with BT Yahoo! broadband I have had nothing but trouble which has resulted in several calls upon BT Yahoo! help line but when they learn that I use Microsoft Outlook they say things like 'BT Yahoo does not support Microsoft Outlook' or 'BT Yahoo does not subscribe or encourage Microsoft Outlook, you must use Outlook Express'. So I got them to set me up with Outlook Express only to find that my address book driven by my Compaq ipaq palm top was lost. I had to get on to Microsoft to get me back on to Microsoft Outlook for which I had to pay £60.00 plus. Still experiencing problems I follow the on screen instructions and contact Internet Service Provider, BT Yahoo who once again tell me that they can not assist me as I use Microsoft Outlook. I insist that, as my Internet Service Provider, they must assist me and I am asked to hold for most of 'Winter' from the 'Four Seasons' When a voice greets me and asks if he can help me. I ask him if he is a supervisor and has the other guy I was talking to told him of the problem I have? He informs me that I am now talking to Microsoft and moreover, as he is in the anti virus department he is unable to help me. So even though BT Yahoo advertising states that it works with all systems including Outlook Express 'ETC' what it does not say is that it does not work or support Microsoft Outlook however they are not above swerving unhappy subscribers over to Microsoft to sort out any problems! I have written and e-mailed a complaint but having recieved no response I have copied my complaint to Sir Ian Vallence, Chairman of BT Group and I await his response.

Re: Help required by a non techy - Alex Cameron (8th Feb 2005 - 10:48:26) This is a perfect candidate for my suggestion of online help from Habit Solutions... Paul - can you be slightly more specific? Other than losing your iPaq address book, what is the trouble you're having with Outlook? I'm sure we can club together to get it working. Which version do you have (the latest - 2003)?

Re: Help required by a non techy - Freddie Dawkins (8th Feb 2005 - 12:10:32) Paul - I had the same problems. Took a lot of messing around to get it all synched but I did get there in the end. Basically, start with Outlook Express and chose it as the default programme for when you want to amke a connection. Look at the settings in Windows for modem/connections. You can set up lots of different connections and must take care to use the drop down menu at connection time to ensure you are using Express. I found it easier than trying to find a way to use Outlook itself. But you are right, BT Yahoo are misleading people, to say the least, by not admitting they don't really support those wanting to stick with Outlook and not OE. Alex I know is good at this stuff, so I'm sure we can all help you get round the probs. If you need to speak direct, call me on 07769 665 963 Good luck! Freddie

Re: Help required by a non techy - S (8th Feb 2005 - 12:52:05) I'm suprised that you got through to MS, infact I don't believe it was MS. If they put you through to PSS then they would of sorted the problem out for you and would not of said I am a virus man I can't help you. You would of received an incident number and talked through how to do it. As far as I was aware the only ISP that didn't support Outlook was AOL, unless things have changed in the last year or two. There is no reason at all that you shouldn't be able to use it and synchronise with your IPAQ. I take it your Outlook profile is set up correctly with your POP3 and SMTP server names so you are receiving and sending email? Once you have Outlook setup you install the active synch software from your IPAQ and it should all be straight forward. At what point are you getting to?

Re: Help required by a non techy - S (8th Feb 2005 - 13:15:33) On another note Outlook express and Outlook are both MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface) clients. They are both setup and exchange mail using the same protocols through the same ports. As far as the IP is concerned it's a MAPI client. Actually I have just done some research and BT do not support MS Outlook/office but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. It can be achieved by fiddling with the authentication settings on your outlook client. Although this says different: http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/bty/features/mailing/ Do you run the BT yahoo mail application? I read somewhere if you stop that and run Outlook that will work. The mail application directs everything to Outlook express.

Re: Help required by a non techy - Dick (8th Feb 2005 - 20:43:02) As an alternative try "Mozilla Firefox" It's a free download and is a lot safer than outlook and co. It also runs Google as standard but has more search engines to choose from. Whats more, NO SPAM, Yippee

Re: Help required by a non techy - Steve Read (8th Feb 2005 - 22:51:37) I can understand not one word of all this but my wrinky dinky left hand side tampee waffle valve was giving me hell last night!

Re: Help required by a non techy - Alex Cameron (8th Feb 2005 - 23:05:46) There is almost no reason why an ISP should only support Outlook Express, but i should imagine the reason they do is that they can customise it for their own ends. As Steve points out, they are both MAPI clients, so as long as you have the right details for your email accounts and Outlook is set as your default email application, everything should be fine. Btw Dick - excellent call on Firefox (my preferred browser), which can be downloaded at http://www.getfirefox.com. However, what i think you meant for an alternative email program to OE is Mozilla Thunderbird, which can be downloaded at http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/. Make sure you check out Mozilla Update (https://addons.update.mozilla.org/) to get all the latest extensions, search engines and themes. Hell, why not go the whole way and ditch XP for playing solitaire on Mandrake Linux? You could run MS Office on Wine, or just chuck it out in favour of the considerably groovier OpenOffice.org. I know of several (non-techy) offices that are now completely Linux-ified, with almost no hassle at all. Food for thought?

Re: Help required by a non techy - Finchie (9th Feb 2005 - 12:56:50) Paul, I assume you are after some of the value add services from BT Yahoo. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/bty/compare/ will tell you if you need the yahoo bit. My non-tecchie input is that the BT Yahoo service provides an email facility, so that is probably why they specify which email client it is compatible with. If you don't need the mail component, I would recommend BT Broadband which I have used for nearly 2 years - heavily. In that time - there has not been one outage. I use it with Outlook connecting to a company Exchange server. All was relatively easy easy to configure, but I do remember having to call support once - BT Broadband's support was great. Knowing BT, I bet they have three separate support organisations for BT Broadband, BT Yahoo and BT Openworld - so there is probably a different level of service !! I also sych my Palm Pilot with Outlook. Again with no problems. And finally - as I learnt from experience - connecting to broadband means you open your PC to intruders/hackers, so either enable XP's firewall or install a firewall. Even though I run XP, I have installed the free version of ZoneAlarm (www.zonealarm.com) - which has been brilliant. Cheers, Finchie

Re: Help required by a non techy - Paul Robinson (10th Feb 2005 - 08:23:55) Good morning gentlemen. Its me, the non techy again and if you need further proof of that subriquete then let me tell you that I understood about 15% of the advice given to me below since most of it was in a language I am not proficient in. Let me respond to your questions. Alex: I run Windows XP and the problems that I have are: 1) When I switch my machine on the two green lights on the Thomson Speedtouch 330 modem that BT supplied me with do not light up. Because of this when I try to connect to the internet I get an error report saying there is no connection. I have got round this by pulling out the USP plug from the back of my machine and pushing it back in and lo, there are lights and I am away. 2) When I send e-mails by clicking on 'SEND' Top right hand coner of the screen, they are sent to my outbox and a message comes up in the bottom right hand corner of the screen with a little yellow triangle telling me there is an error and advising me to contact my Internet Service Provider. I have overcome this by clicking 'SEND & RECEIVE' and the e-mail exits my outbox and checking my 'Sent Items' screen I confirm that they have gone. So what's the problem? I hear you chorus. The problem is that I did not have to go through all this rigmaroll before I signed up for broadband and my ISP cannot, or will not help me because I use Microsoft Outlook. 'S' Thank you for your input. I can confirm that I was swerved, without so much as a thank you or kiss my ar** and have a nice day, into the virus department of Microsoft, located, I suspect, somewhere in the Indian sub continent as the guy I spoke to told me he was from Microsoft and could not help me unless I phoned Microsoft and went through the normal channel picking up an incident number and, no doubt, another £60.00 charge. Finchie, Yes, I was told that because of the always open nature of Broadband I should upgrade my Norton Anti virus protection to include a firewall and this was done before I ran the BT Yahoo broadband soft ware prior to connection.

Re: Help required by a non techy - Alex Cameron (10th Feb 2005 - 16:25:30) Paul - The USB problem sounds familiar, as i get it all the time with my wireless USB network adapters. In that context, it wouldn't seem to be a problem specific to the broadband connection, rather the crapness of XP at picking it up your hardware. I've yet to find a workaround to this yet. Is it possible for you to note down the sending error? It might be that you have to check your incoming mailbox with your user/pass before you are allowed to send mail - this is often the case with ISPs that use the same server for both functions. You can get around this by scheduling an automatic send/receive every 1 min or so, or by fiddling with your sending options so they include authorisation info. This would seem to be your problem if you are able to send email. The chances are that a lot of the problems are due to the details about your outgoing/incoming (smtp/pop3) mail servers. Outlook should have allowed you to automatically import accounts from Outlook Express, but if you are just changing ISP settings in Outlook, the most classic mistake is with specifying who provides your outgoing (SMTP) mail. These options can be found in Outlook under Tools > Email Accounts, and Tools > Options, respectively. From memory, BT Retail (Yahoo and Openworld) don't allow you to send mail through their system unless your email address is provided by them - e.g. if your email is johndoe@company.com, you have to 'register' company.com with BT, or use your BT-provided address instead. If the outgoing mail server checks your address and finds out its not registered with them, it will prohibit you from sending any email. This is primarily an anti-spam measure as spammers frequently falsify their credentials. I would write a letter of complaint as the difference between Outlook and Outlook Express is smaller than they make out - the same problems occur in each, and to be frank, its unacceptable that they should segregate support for the two.

Re: Help required by a non techy - Dick (10th Feb 2005 - 18:17:58) Alex, I stand corrected. But i am glad that there is someone else who knows the value of MOZILLA. STEVE, if you give the wrinky tink a shuffle with the squinyip key it should sort you out....

Re: Help required by a non techy - Steve Read (10th Feb 2005 - 23:32:08) Cheers Dick that sorted that out no problem!

Re: Help required by a non techy - Chris Bland (22nd Feb 2005 - 16:26:24) Having just read through the above comments its seems a case of de'ja'vu (appologies to the french for spelling). Since January i have been unable to connect MS Outlook to my BT Openworld account, it just keeps saying that i need to verify my port and ssl numbers are correct. Does anyone know of an easy way around this having sorted their own system out?

Re: Help required by a non techy - Paul Robinson (22nd Feb 2005 - 21:12:13) Grateful thanks to all here. I am pleased to report that having recieved dog lean service from Bt Yahoo Broadband help desk I wrote to Sir Christopher Bland the new Chairman of BT Group,a man who, when he shouts sh*t, several people jump on the shovel! I was telephoned by a senior technical support guy who talked me through my problems and sorted them out to my satisfaction. I then got a follow up letter from a 'BT Retail Internet Operations Complaint Review Service Team Leader '(Imagine how big his business cards must be to accomodate that title), apologising for the lack of response and for swerving me over to Microsoft and promising never to do it again and granting me three months free connection which I think more than compensates me for the money I had to pay Microsoft to talk me back out of Outlook Express. The only thing that he was not able to do was change his advertising to warn Microsoft Outlook users who might be considering BT Yahoo Broadband that BT Yahoo does not support Microsoft Outlook. So be warned!

Re: Help required by a non techy - Alex Cameron (23rd Feb 2005 - 00:16:59) You see, this is really unbelievable on BT's part - they know Outlook is the de facto choice in most offices. Chris - have you changed anything on your PC recently? For example installing a firewall, imported/exported mail accounts etc? What is the exact error number you are getting back?

Re: Help required by a non techy - snappie (9th Mar 2005 - 17:52:03) I've got a problem with BT at the moment, and am in the process of writing to chairman, did you simply post it to br head office??? also, have you an email address for CB? Apologies for off topic reply...thanks

Re: Help required by a non techy - Paul Robinson (11th Mar 2005 - 20:21:29) Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. You should address your complaint to: Sir Christopher Bland, Chairman, British telecommunications Group plc, 81 Newgate Street, LONDON, EC1A 7AJ I only resorted to contacting the head honcho because both my letter and e-mail to the group were both ignored. Best of luck. Let us know how you get on.

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