My Mom's PC: downloads stop at 99 percent, internet connection crashes

Factual Questions
1

I’m trying to remotely help my Mom with the problem described in the title; she tries to download something, and it stops at 99 percent, and the internet connection qoes completely down.

She’s not very pc literate, so it’s been very difficult trying to solve this via phone and instant messaging. Usually my Dad would handle this stuff, but he passed away early this year.

She’s running Windows 98, and uses IE. Her connection is dial-up. We reproduced the problem today by trying to transfer a 6 megabyte file via MSN Messenger; but she’s seen it more frequently with IE.

We first send a small file that was <1 megabyte, and it went fine. Then twice in a row, the 6 megabyte file transfer stopped at 99 percent and her internet connnection died.

We verified that she had 700 megabytes or so free, so I suppose disk space isn’t the issue.

Anybody come across a similar problem?

2

Have you tried using Getright or some other download manager? Does this also happen if you use Getright ?

Also, try Tools/Internet Options/Connections and set it to “never dial a connection”, just in case that’s interfering with the connection. It’s difficult to tell with the limited information.

3

Thanks for the suggestions xash. I know what what you mean about limited info; it’s been a struggle. Have you ever tried to diagnose a proglem for a relative or friend over the phone who couldn’t even load Windows Explorer without explicit instructions? It’s rough.

How could “never dial a connection” interfere with the download?