I was able to demonstrate the same error 31 failure with my Vista
installation on three entirely different devices / software - the original
Verizon Blackberry with VZAccess Manager, a Sprint USB dongle with their
connectivity software, and a plain old dial-up modem using Vista's built-in
MS DUN service. I sent and/or posted trace information for the dial-up modem
case since it involves much fewer third-parties. In the end, it all came to
naught; despite absolute proof, MS technical support has yet to acknowledge
that the problem exists.
I have worked with MS Technical Support now on several issues with various
products over the past year or so and I'm beginning to see a pattern. Most
of the technicians seem to really care and try very hard to help. They are
actually rather good at helping you find and deal with a problem as long as
it falls into one of two categories: (a) User error / misunderstanding /
mis-configuration, or (b) third-party product bug / incompatibility. If the
problem truly is (c) a bug within an MS product, they can't help you. They
get stuck in a loop. They will keep running you around in circles trying and
retrying one thing after another to narrow down the problem to something in
(a) or (b), but they have no mechanism to deal with (c). It's as if the
concept of a bug in MS code doesn't exist within their culture or language.
They apparently have no mechanism to escalate to any team within MS that can
deal with an actual MS product bug. (If they do, they never acknowledged it
to me on the two proven "category (c)" problems that I have brought to them.
[The other one was in MS Word.])
So, the foregoing is preface to the fact that I have now resolved the issue
on my laptop. I have abandoned Vista. I downgraded (upgraded?) to XP
Professional, which I occasionally run under VMWare only when needed for some
specific application that won't run under the laptop's primary OS, Ubuntu
8.04 64-bit Linux. (I'm gradually whittling away at those, but in my line of
work, will probably always have a few.) The day after I installed Linux, I
was able to connect to the Internet using my Verizon Blackberry device via
BlueTooth. Connectivity has worked reliably ever since.
I spent many, many, many hours trying to get MS to take this problem
seriously, and they never did. In the end, I ran out of time. I couldn't
afford to be without self-contained connectivity any more when I travel to a
client site. My business was beginning to suffer. I really, really tried to
love Vista. She let me down.
ScheideTech said:
Add me to the list, multiple restore points and several modems later, All
reporting the error 31 after being authenticated on the network. The system
has been running fine for about a year, then didn't. Don't seem to have an
acknowledgement that there is a problem with Vista's dialup handling from
microsoft folks.
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