0Windows 7 dial-up connection autodial

Over the xmas hol­i­days I was asked to look at a few issues with a fam­ily PC. One of the prob­lems was a minor annoy­ance related to the modem-based DSL inter­net con­nec­tion. The dial up box has a tick box which says “con­nect auto­mat­ic­ally”. Although this box was ticked, when the PC was restar­ted when a con­nec­tion was required the same dia­log box would show up, with the option unticked.

Some dig­ging even­tu­ally revealed that this set­ting is some­how asso­ci­ated with a loc­a­tion and that a loc­a­tion had­n’t been set. To rem­edy this open the con­trol pan­el, and then the “Phone and Modem” con­trol pan­el. The first time this is opened it will ask for an area code — once you have com­pleted this and clicked OK the con­trol pan­el will appear. you can click OK to close the con­trol pan­el — spe­cify­ing the area code is all that is required. From now on the option to “con­nect auto­mat­ic­ally” should be retained