Help! TAPCIS reboots my PC!

[salonso]

Hello, TAPCIS friends!

Have been using TAPCIS for ages and, in the last five years, together with COM/IP. It was painful to see it become obsolete, but am still using it for mail. Sometime last year, I believe after a Windows XP update, TAPCIS would reboot my PC after uploading or downloading. Managed to fix it, but can't remember how! I recently started connecting via ADSL and, on the same day, did a Windows XP Update (but have not updated to SP2). Ever since, TAPCIS usually (but not always) reboots my PC in the middle of downloading or uploading mail (and sometimes my outgoing messages are lost in the process). Any clues as to what might be causing this (and how to fix it!) would be more than appreciated. I don't want to give up on TAPCIS!!!

Best regards, Sylvia

[Lindsey]

I can't say that I know the answer to your question, but have you tried using TAPCIS on a dial-up connection without COM/IP? And if so, does it exhibit the same behavior?

--Lindsey

[salonso]

Thanks for the tip, Lindsey! You may have a point, as I tried TAPCIS on a dial-up connection without COM/IP several times, and it worked. But then it also works with COM/IP via ADSL ... on and off, when it feels like it! And it also works with COM/IP via my non-ADSL ISP (as it has been working for years). If I could only read the long DOS message which appears (so briefly!) when the PC reboots in the middle of a TAPCIS upload or download! There is no way I can keep using TAPCIS without COM/IP, as it implies a very expensive long-distance call. And I don't think I want to spend the rest of my days switching back and forth between an ADSL and a non-ADSL connection, just so I can continue using TAPCIS! So will have to keep on trying different "fixes". I suspect Norton AntiVirus may also have something to do with the problem (Windows XP takes a longer time loading when the ADSL modem is on and connected to the PC, and the Norton AntiVirus icon on the task bar first states that Auto-Protect is disabled and it only becomes enabled after quite a wait). Oh, well ... ;-)

[Lindsey]

I suspect Norton AntiVirus may also have something to do with the problem (Windows XP takes a longer time loading when the ADSL modem is on and connected to the PC, and the Norton AntiVirus icon on the task bar first states that Auto-Protect is disabled and it only becomes enabled after quite a wait).
This is why it's nearly impossible to diagnose this stuff remotely. There's so much going on in the latest Windows systems, and those apps are not always well-disposed toward DOS apps. And when the problem is intermittent, it makes it all the more difficult to know when you have isolated it.

You might consider trying a different antivirus program, if you think Norton may be interfering. I use NOD32 (http://www.nod32.com/), which appears to be fairly well-behaved. You might consider uninstalling Norton and installing a trial version of NOD32 to see how it goes. If that doesn't work any better, you can always uninstall it and re-install Norton.

--Lindsey