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Setting up PPP Dialup on Windows 3.1

Close all running programs (except the Program Manager). Insert the disk labeled "PPPrairienet Connection Disk 1" into your floppy drive. Make sure Program Manager is opened on your screen. If it isn't, double click on the Program manager icon to open it. Then, click once on "File" then once on "Run..". You will then see a place to type in something, under "Command Line". Type in "a:setup.exe" and click on "OK". This will run the Internet Explorer installation program. It will tell you what it's doing at each step, and ask you a few questions along the way. It will also prompt you to change disks when it becomes necessary.

The first thing you'll be confronted with is the End User License Agreement; read this (if you feel the need) and press "accept". (It essentially tells you not to sell their program or call it your own.) You'll then get a box telling you to make sure your programs are all closed; you did that already, so press "OK". Next, the installer asks what directory it should put Internet Explorer in, and it will suggest C:\IEXPLORE as a great spot for it. There's usually no reason to change that, so ignore it and click "OK".

Here's the part where you have to make some decisions. You'll be asked what type of installation you want -- "typical" or "custom". If you have at least a 486 computer, you can simply choose "typical" and forget it. However, if you have a slow (386) machine, we recommend that you select "custom". That gives you this screen, which will have X's in all three boxes in the window. It is recommended that you click the X beside "Virtual Machine for Java" to clear it.

Java is a programming language which allows nifty multimedia programs to run for you on web pages. However, it slows down your browsing, so if you have a very slow (386) computer, Java may make it intolerably pokey.

When you've done that, just click "continue". You'll be asked what program group you'd like Explorer to be in; you can just accept "Microsoft Internet Explorer" and forget it. Now, at last, the installer begins copying files, which may take quite a while if your machine is very slow. (It took about half an hour on our 386SX test machine.)

The next thing you'll see, after the file copying is all done, is Explorer telling you that it needs to install your modem. "But my modem is already installed", you say? Yes, it probably is, but Explorer doesn't "see" it yet, and this procedure will formally introduce them to each other. Click "next" to let Explorer detect your modem. When you see the box with your modem type listed, click "next" to move on.

This box asks for your location information; the only thing you really need to do is enter your area code. (Click your mouse cursor in the box labeled "What area (or city) code are you in now?", and type your area code.) The rest is already done for you, unless you're setting up a machine in an office where you need to dial "9" or some other number to get an outside line.

You'll see a box showing you what ports are being looked at, and a message that Setup is "querying" your modem. Let it query all it likes; when you get a box displaying the modem type, it's done. Click "finish" (aren't you relieved to see that word?).

After a brief delay, you'll see a message telling you that the dialer you just installed requires that you restart your computer. Click "OK", wait for the box telling you that Setup completed successfully, and click "OK" again. Remove any floppy disks from your drives, exit Windows, and turn off your computer. Now restart the computer.

When Windows restarts, open the Microsoft Internet Explorer program group (if it isn't already open), and double-click on the icon titled "Get On The Internet". This starts the Internet Connection Wizard. When the "welcome" box displays, click "next". You now see a box titled "Setup Options" -- click "Manual", then click "next". The resulting window has a box titled "Name of Service Provider". Click your mouse in this white box and type "PPPrairienet" without quotation marks (you can use any name you like, by the way), and then click "next".

After some delay, you're asked for the phone number of your Internet Service Provider. This is where you enter Prairienet's dialup number. The area code should already be entered, so click in the top right-hand box, where it says "phone number", and enter 239-1001 for the Champaign-Urbana area. (You can omit the hyphen.) Click "next". Your next window asks your user name and password; these will be the same user name and password you always use to log on to your Prairienet account. (Remember that your "user name" is your Prairienet login name, and not your real name.) Click your mouse in each of these boxes and type the information, then click "next".

The next box is titled "IP Address", and it should have selected "My Internet Service Provider automatically assigns me one". Make sure that's checked, and then click "next".

Now you see this box, which wants to know the DNS server address for Prairienet. Click your mouse in the first box, titled "DNS Server", and type 192.17.3.3 exactly as shown at the right, including the periods. When you're done, click "next".

You'll now be asked if you want to set up Internet News. If you're new to the internet, you can safely ignore this for now; just click "No" and then "next". If you do want to read newsgroups, click "yes" and then "next", and enter the information it asks for. Your email address, user name, and password are the same ones you've always used at Prairienet. The Prairienet news server is news.prairienet.org.

Now you get to click "finish" again. (It's closer to the truth this time, I promise!) Once again, you need to select a Program Group; it's easiest to select the same group that contains Internet Explorer. Unless you changed it, this will be "Microsoft Internet Explorer".

We're almost done. You should still have the Internet Explorer program group open in front of you, and now you'll see a new icon called PPPrairienet (or whatever you chose to call the connection). Double click on it. Enter your user name and password, if they're not already shown; note that you won't be able to actually read your password, since it will be shown as a string of asterisks. At the bottom of the window, you'll see a box that says "Properties"; click on that.

You see a box like the one at the right; click on the X beside the line "Start Internet Explorer when connected". (You may not want this to happen if you just want to check mail, and if you're on a slow computer, waiting for it to open when you don't want it to can be extremely aggravating.)

Now, at the top of the window, click on the tab labeled "Modem".

You now see the window at the left. In the "Maximum speed" box, click the arrow at the right. Select the speed that is closest to, but not less than, your modem speed. For example, say you have a 14400 bps modem. There is no option here for 14400; you have to choose 9600 or 19200. In this case, choose 19200. Click "OK" when you're done.

Believe it or not, you're now ready to dial into Prairienet! Click "connect" at the bottom of the window, and you're off. When the connection is complete, double-click on the Internet Explorer icon in the Microsoft Internet Explorer program group (which should be open in front of you), and you're ready to start surfing.

Unfortunately, Internet Explorer 3.02a does not come with a mail reader, so if you want to read email over a PPP connection, you'll need to install Eudora Light or some other mail program.

Finally, if you have any further questions that aren't covered here, don't hesitate to call the Prairienet Member Services Office at 244-1962 or email

Written by David Talkington, with additions by Andrea Ingram.