Ok

I have tried the net to solve this one and had no joy. I am getting the following message when I try and terminate my internet conection.

It is not possible to disconnect at this time. This connection may be using one or more protocols that do not support Plug-and-Play, or it may have been initiated by another user or the system account.

Any help/suggestions would be gratefully received

How are you connecting to the Internet? It sounds like it's connected some non-standard way that you don't have permission to stop!

Oh no, you're not using AOL are you ?!!

I was using internet explorer. When this started I downloaded Mozilla Firefox and binned the former (recomend the firefox by the way). My ISP is tiscali and the connection is a USB ADSL WAN adapter.
All I can think of is that at around the time this started I had downloaded a number of programs (stuffit, dap and a promo pcdoctor thing) these have since been removed.

The one piece of information that I did find is here http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=237288

My main concern was that i had received some kind of worm or virus. Just bought Mcafee and downloaded adaware, ran full scans and no sign as yet.

oh no, the only thing worse than using AOL is Tiscali! (I should know - I'm with them!)

Assuming your using the crap Sagem modem supplied by Tiscali, try un-installing it and then download the new one from...

http://www.sagem.com/support/site/mo...hp?page=driver

Then setup your account again from scratch. You never know it might just work!

I can't see why Stuffit or a "promo pcdoctor thing" would cause this but it could have something to do with DAP. Try right-clicking it in the system tray if it's there and shut it down. Does that help?

In the Preferences for DAP, under the 'Dial-up service' section, ensure that it's set to NOT dial any of your connections itself (it will, therefore, just use any active connection). Reboot - does that help?

If not, uninstall DAP. Does that make any difference?

DJ Nafey

I have already uninstalled dap via add/remove programes. Checked the system tray and identified an unknown account? not sure what that means. No sign of anything to do with dap.

Gabriel

The link you provided sends me to a blank screen. I did download a whole host of drivers form Sagem. Do you recomend any in particular.
Tryed the uninstall option. No joy

Cheers

There's a local saying.." it dousnt rain it pours ", used when a problem gets worse. I have rather boldly deleted the UNKNOWN USER . Whatever it was or is has run of with a large quantity of files.

Appologies, pressed the wrong button and sent half a post.

I realise that this may mean my exclussion from this forum, on the grounds of being a complete incompitent but may I be so bold as to include a further question.

Q: If deleting the UNKNOWN USER has limited my access to these files (internet favorites, saved word documents.....basicly everything but the basic programms). Is there an easy step to recovery or is it a job for the proffesionals.

Oh dear

The Unknown User account is something I've only ever seen in a network environment. It means "there's a profile for Jo Bloggs on this PC but Jo Bloggs's network user account has been deleted from the network so now I can't work out who Jo Bloggs is and no-one can log in as him or access his files (apart from the administrator).

Once it's gone, it's gone. You might be able to send off your system to a data recovery specialist (who could try to retrieve deleted stuff from your hard disk if you've only just done it and haven't done lots of other stuff on your PC after that) but these are VERY expensive. Alternatively, you might want to get hold of a copy of "Undelete" (I think this is a McAfee program) or something similar which will try to do a similar job to a data recovery specialist.

The fact that you had an 'Unknown user' account might explain why you couldn't kill off your broadband connection. It might be the 'Unknown user' that was starting up something to do with the Internet connection or one of the programs that used it.

If you're the only person that ever uses this PC, then the 'Unknown user' was probably you but your Windows user profile got corrupted so it made another one. Maybe.

DJ Nafey

Thanks for the info (depressing though it is ).
You mention that it might be possible for the administrator (me ) to gain access to the files. I have given our usuall login acc the administrator function and searched using the option on the start menu to no avail.
The confussing thing is is that there was no warning of a delete taking place which suggests to me that the files are still around. Surley if windows was going to remove this amount of data there would be a warning.