Recently Clarke switched to Windows XP to “keep abreast of new developments.” I determined not to follow suit. As far as I was concerned, the XP phenomenon was an attempt to extort hard-earned cash from hard-pressed consumers, and for what? For the glories of suffering an insufferable operating system, only to have it quit on you in three years? Switch? Not me, buddy.

What would it take to convince me to use Windows XP? How about a new laptop and the possibility of being freed forever from cubicle culture? My business manager (read CPA husband) advised me that if I plan to continue working for myself I should upgrade my equipment (I had a Pentium 350 desktop running Windows 98.) Since some of the contracts I am entertaining would require out of town work, he recommended a laptop.

He was right about the equipment. The software I’m documenting right now won’t run on my old machine.

Getting a new computer, however, didn’t mean that I wanted to get back into operating system purgatory. Sure, troubleshooting was fun in the “old days” of computing when everything was “simple.”

In “good old DOS,” the mysteries of the universe could be revealed by two tiny text files called “config.sys” and “autoexec.bat.” With DOS, one had no registry to battle, very little Microsoft-invented lingo to ponder, and no maze of cute “windows” with incomprehensible menu options to wade through. Best of all DOS-based software never insulted your intelligence with a cartoon paper clip.

That was the up side. The down was that all your energy went into editing those pesky aforementioned files to avoid all-to-frequent “out of memory” errors. Does anyone worry about “out of memory” errors these days? The only recent time I have seen a remotely-related message was when trying to print a very graphically oriented web page to my ten-year-old laser printer. And of course the memory problem was related to my printer hardware, not my computer’s innards. And networks were left to the guys in robes and pointed hats.

I digress. Now that I have a business to run, I am not interested in hunting down problems and tweaking systems to fix them. I want things to work. Now!

We ordered two Dell Inspiron 8200 laptops with Windows XP Professional. When I turned on the first laptop, I didn’t have the network cable attached.

At startup, the machine went through a short setup process that included establishing the initial user names and finding the network connections. When we did hook the first laptop to the network, it connected to the Internet via our network hub, router and cable modem, but would not recognize the other computers on our local area network.

With the second machine, I made sure to connect the network cable before starting it up. Same results. We tried the Network Setup Wizard. Same results.

Since I was adamant about not spending time troubleshooting network problems, I installed our external zip drive on my laptop and used it to transfer files when needed. Not a very efficient solution, but it kept me from a dreaded hours-long “what do I try next?” session.

Meanwhile, my husband took on the role of network troubleshooter. He bought “Windows XP for Dummies.” He bought “Troubleshooting Windows” magazine. He visited Microsoft’s Website and printed half a ream of XP troubleshooting information.

We narrowed the problem to a few possibilities. Most sources pointed to the XP Internet Connection Firewall. Disabling it was quick and easy. Find the Network Connections folder in Control Panel. Check. Click the appropriate connection. Local Area Connection — Check. Select the Advanced tab. Whoa. What Advanced tab?

We tried the same procedure on the other laptop. No Advanced tab there either. We did find the elusive Advanced tab on my son-in-law’s computer, but he had XP Home Edition. We have the Professional edition.

To their favor, Dell tech support was very helpful, even though it was a Windows problem. But no one, not even Microsoft tech support, was able to tell us why we were missing the Advanced tab. They suggested that we reinstall Windows XP. We decided to wait on that option.

If you can’t solve one problem, we reasoned, why not tackle another? One article suggested that you must make the Windows XP computer the server and relegate all other machines to client positions. That might make sense if the XP machine wasn’t a road warrior’s laptop. What does the network do while the server is on the road? Next suggestion. . .

One article suggested making Windows XP “behave” by installing NetBEUI (an older network communications protocol.) Windows XP ships with drivers for this protocol, but does not automatically install them. We had to insert the Windows XP setup disk and copy the nbf.sys file to the Windows\system32\drivers directory and the netnbf.inf file to the Windows\inf directory.

Next we had to enable NetBEUI. Again, following instructions. Network Connections in Control Panel. Check. Select the applicable Network Connection. Local Area Connection — Check. On the General Tab, click the Install button. Whoa. What Install button?

Come to find out, you do NOT select Local Area Connection. You select Network Bridge. Then you click Properties. There the General Tab displays the Install Button. After that, all followed easily.

I’m glad that we tried the NetBEUI route before we ripped out Windows XP and attempted to reinstall it. I say “attempted” because when reinstalling an operating system, an attempt is usually as far as I get. With NetBEUI in residence my laptop found the network without further ado. After my victory dance, I started making the network useful.

It took me about two minutes to add my old HP Laserjet printer to my laptop’s Printers folder and start printing a Word document. This was a pleasant surprise because I had heard that older printers sometimes had to be replaced when you upgrade to XP. I am printing through my Windows 98 computer rather than directly via my laptop, so I still don’t know if the Laserjet would work with XP via a direct connection.

Trying to hotsync my Palm device to my laptop via the network was not as easy. I want as few devices as possible directly connected to my laptop so I pick up and run at a moment’s notice. Otherwise, I wouldn’t mess with this setup.

The instructions to set up a Direct Network Hotsync consisted of the following steps. Connect the cradle to the front end computer (the one connected to the cradle.) Check. On both PCs, open the Hotsync manager and select Network. Whoa. No Network Option.

Tech support at Palm told me to uninstall my Palm software by running an Add/Remove Program procedure in Control Panel. Then search the hard disk for all Palm.* and Hotsync.* files and delete them. Then edit the registry. Then reinstall the software. On BOTH computers.

I followed the instructions, started up the newly-installed Palm software and displayed the Hotsync Manager. The Network option was still somewhere in the Twilight Zone. Since I had run the re-installation from the CD-ROM that came with my Palm device, I concluded that the software shipped without a Network Option. (I already knew it shipped without the expense account application.)

I went to the Palm Website and downloaded the Palm software, hoping the current version corrected these oversights. I went through the entire uninstall/reinstall process on both computers again. Reinstalling the software did magically make the Network option (and the expense application) appear.

But I had another problem. When I opened the Palm desktop, my data was missing. Since I had faithfully backed up my files, I wasn’t too worried, but was at a loss about what had gone wrong. I copied my data backups to my C:\Palm directory and tried again. Still no data.

The data is there, I reasoned, but the software is ignoring it. This means that the software is looking for data in all the wrong places. If I’m lucky, there should be some option in the Palm Desktop to direct the software to the correct directory. Wandering around the Tools menu, I found the Options menu item. On the General tab, the data directory was listed as C:\Program Files\Palm. During installation, the software had recognized K. Joyce McDonald as the existing Palm user (with data in the C:\Palm directory.) But during installation, it ignored the data in that directory and created a new data repository in a different place. Why?

I didn’t know why, and I still don’t, but fixing the problem was easier than reasoning. I changed the directory listing to point to my existing data. My Palm Desktop now displays the correct data.

Now it is time to make network hotsync a reality. Here goes…Select the Network option from Hotsync manager on both machines. Check. Select Local USB option on the front-end computer. Check. Now select the Lansync option from the Hotsync menu on the Palm device. Whoa. What Lansync option?

I e-mailed tech support to tell them that my M130 is missing Lansync. Their reply: LANSync is not available on the Palm M130. Na Ni Na No--Na Ni Na No--Na Ni Na No. .