Error 633 and Windows XP . . . still going on?

[Bryan K. Walton]

My mother and father have a fairly new Dell Dimension desktop (about 2
months old). It is running Windows XP with a dialup connection to
their ISP. Suddenly they are getting an "error 633" when attempting
to dial up to their ISP, telling them that the port is already in use.
I have spent the last 24 hours searching the web about this issue.
There have been numerous postings about this problem, including in
this newsgroup. Unfortunately, it seems from what I have found so far
that the only fix is to reinstall Windows XP. In my opinion, that
isn't acceptable.

I am looking for a Ken Wickes from Microsoft who has been helping
people for the last year or so on this issue. Kevin, if you are still
on this newsgroup, is there any update? My parents are using a
Connextant Modem. I have found the KnowledgeBase article pertaining
to this issue, but they don't have a Palm, or any Palm software on
their computer. Furthermore, this problem started yesterday, December
6, 2003. Nothing has changed on their computer since November 26th
when I ran the latest Windows Update for them. The computer worked
fine up until yesterday.

A system restore to pre November 26, did not fix anything. I can't
find any conflicts on com ports, and an uninstall/reinstall of the
modem driver didn't work either. Help! Please tell me there is a
real fix for this now.

-Bryan Walton

 

[Bryan K. Walton]

their ISP. Suddenly they are getting an "error 633" when attempting
to dial up to their ISP, telling them that the port is already in use.

I am looking for a Ken Wickes from Microsoft who has been helping
people for the last year or so on this issue. Kevin, if you are still
on this newsgroup, is there any update? My parents are using a

modem driver didn't work either. Help! Please tell me there is a
real fix for this now.

OK, I can't believe I am posting this, but we have this fixed, at
least on my parent's computer. In troubleshooting last night, one of
the things we tried was rebooting the computer, and also completely
shutting down the computer. However, we never physically cut power to
the computer. Today, we turned the computer off and tried flipping the
red power switch on their surge protector and that fixed it! So if
people are still having this problem, try flipping the switch on the
surge protector and/or unplugging the computer power cord. Hopefully
that will help.

-Bryan

 

[Mr Loon]

Being that Dell's add broadband to their systems for the
first 4 months or so, it might be the following from
Microsoft:

Error Message "Error 633" When Starting Broadband
Connection
View products that this article applies to.
This article was previously published under Q279658
SYMPTOMS
When you attempt to make a broadband connection, you may
receive the following error message:

Error 633 - the modem (or other connecting device) is
already in use or is not configured properly.
CAUSE
This behavior can occur if you already have an active
broadband connection.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this behavior, you must disconnect the
existing broadband connection to establish the new
connection. You must only have one broadband connection
that is active.
The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Microsoft Windows XP Professional


Beyond that, check the following also:

-----------------------------------------------
re: Error 633
Monday, February 3, 2003 at 11:35 am
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Popcorn [find other messages by Popcorn]

Thanks Steve for the support it helped me alot

633 If this is a dial-up connection, the COM port that

the network connection attempted

to use is already in use by another active network connection or another process
(for example, a phone line monitoring program, such as a

fax program). Quit the
application

that is blocking the use of the COM port.If this is a virtual private network (VPN)
connection, the VPN device that the network connection attempted to use cannot be
opened

Written in response to: re: Error 633 (Steve: Friday,
January 31, 2003 at 6:06 pm) There are presently no
replies to this message.

------------------------------------------------
Check this reply also:
------------------------------------------------
re: Error 633
Tuesday, May 13, 2003 at 3:44 pm
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by SBCDSLTekkie [find other messages by
SBCDSLTekkie]

Do a Find--Files Or Folders for the file "telephone.ini"
right click, rename it to "telephone.old" Reboot, then
try again. If it doesnt work, rename the file again,
reboot, and then run tapiini.exe. Then try again. Happy
Day To All!



Written in response to:
re: Error 633 (Steve: Friday, January 31, 2003 at 6:06
pm)
There are presently no replies to this message.

 

[Ken Wickes [MSFT]]

OK, I can't believe I am posting this, but we have this fixed, at
least on my parent's computer. In troubleshooting last night, one of
the things we tried was rebooting the computer, and also completely
shutting down the computer. However, we never physically cut power to
the computer. Today, we turned the computer off and tried flipping the
red power switch on their surge protector and that fixed it! So if
people are still having this problem, try flipping the switch on the
surge protector and/or unplugging the computer power cord. Hopefully
that will help.

-Bryan

Thanks for posting back with your results, glad you got it working. The
power thing is interesting, the modem must have got itself into a weird
state.

The problem with 633 is that a number of things can cause it. Your idea
give us something else to recommend.

 

[PPD]

I have a Sony Vaio PCG-FX802 laptop running Windows XP Home Edition
and have noticed this exact same fault recently. We have been dialing
up using the Modem for well over a year now and never experienced any
problems until last weekend (7th December, 2003).

Everytime we try to connect to our ISP, we get the Error 633 message
claiming that the modem is either not configured or etc etc. I have
tried my utmost to resolve the problem, including removing the modem
and re-installing, removing the COM ports and re-installing, even
removing all of the Network Ports that may or may not be conflicting
(there are no Hardware Conflicts detected at all) just to be on the
safe side. Talking of the safe side, I have tried doing this in both
normal mode and safe mode to no avail whatsoever.

The Internal Modem is the standard for the machine, Conexant Ambit
Soft56K. It is attaching itself to COM3, although this port does not
appear in my device driver list under "Ports". I have tried changing
it manually to COM1 and even renaming COM1 to COM3 afterwards, but
nothing works!

I am not aware of any monitoring or listening programs having been
installed at all and nothing new appears to be running. It's curious
that both Bryan and I have experienced this on the same weekend,
although there are no indications on the Symantec website that this is
in any way Virus related (well, not YET anyway!!!)

If anyone can help to advise me with a solution to this fault I'd
greatly appreciate it. Oh, and before you ask, no there are no Palm
Pilots or similar attached to the laptop!!!

Very many thanks and I look forward to your responses!
PPD

 

[Ken Wickes [MSFT]]

The previous poster was able to solve his problem by shutting down the
machine and then unplugging the power (for a full power down). Have you
tried that?

 

[PPD]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for your response. Yes, I have tried to do a complete power cut
off to the machine, i.e. pulled the plug, shut the machine down and
then removed the laptop battery to ensure the machine has no power
whatsoever. Unfortunately, this hasn't helped much.

I'm going to dig out the Restore CDs that came with the machine this
weekend unless anyone can suggest otherwise. It seems a pretty drastic
action to do just to get a modem working again! But, if anyone does
have any more suggestions, they are all gratefully received. Also, I
have not installed any new software in the last week that may have
caused this error, nor can I equate this error to any new hardware
installed or any unexpected errors/crashes to the machine . . .

Thanks in advance for any further responses
PPD

 

[Ken Wickes [MSFT]]

Well the other thing you can try is rarepair which can sometimes fix these
situations although it will reset all your dial up settings. If you want to
try, send me a mail at (e-mail address removed) and I'll send you a copy.

--

Ken Wickes [MSFT]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for your response. Yes, I have tried to do a complete power cut
off to the machine, i.e. pulled the plug, shut the machine down and
then removed the laptop battery to ensure the machine has no power
whatsoever. Unfortunately, this hasn't helped much.

I'm going to dig out the Restore CDs that came with the machine this
weekend unless anyone can suggest otherwise. It seems a pretty drastic
action to do just to get a modem working again! But, if anyone does
have any more suggestions, they are all gratefully received. Also, I
have not installed any new software in the last week that may have
caused this error, nor can I equate this error to any new hardware
installed or any unexpected errors/crashes to the machine . . .

Thanks in advance for any further responses
PPD


"Ken Wickes [MSFT]" <[email protected]> wrote in message

The previous poster was able to solve his problem by shutting down the
machine and then unplugging the power (for a full power down). Have you
tried that?

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem as PDD and I have tried everything that you suggested but still not resolve the error 633. My PC is Win XP Home Edition installed with the PC when I bought it. It has an internal modem (Soft56K Conexant chip) and it was working fine since I got my PC. Before the modem problem arised I installed a very old external modem (USR Sportster 33.6Kb) to use the speaker phone feature that it has. The USR modem was working fine untill I installed Lucent's MyVitalAgent version 8 to monitior the modem connection. I started getting error message from MyVitalAgent about missing some network device. Later on I uninstalled MyVitalAgent because of the nagging error message. I started geting error 633 on both modems. After I tried to fix the eroor by reinstalling the internal modem and other methos as suggested by users in the newsgroup, I noticed that under the network adapters listed in Device Manager there is a new tap called WAN Miniport (Network Monitor) which I did not found in another PC runnign Win XP Pro. I disabled the suspicious WAN Miniport (Network Monitor) the modem made the usual dialing sound when I connected to the ISP however, the connection was immediately cut off as soon as the username and password was verified and the dial up connection show an error 31. I then enabled the WAN Miniport and connect to the ISP again this time the dial up connection shown an error 50. I suspected that the problem was caused by the WAN Miniport (Network Monitor). I tried to update and uninstall the WAN Miniport (Network Monitor) but failed because the system reported that the Device is required for starting up the Windows. I hope this information would help to diagnose the problem and would very much appreciate any help.

 

[PPD]

Thanks for the rarepair.exe, Ken.

Just to update you on this, after running the exe I still got the
Error 633 message and this led me to think that my hardware had
failed. But, I have managed to connect, albeit sporadically, by
manually opening the port when using a Hyper Terminal session. Very
strange this as sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I shall be downloading all of the Windows Update patches again today
(after re-installing the OS last weekend) to see whether this has
changed anything.

PPD

 

[Ken Wickes [MSFT]]

Thanks for the feedback. Rarepair doesn't always cure 633, but it's the
best suggestion I had. Good luck.

 

[Guest]

Rarepair works!!! the error 633 is gone. Mr. Ken Wicks thanks you so much for your kind assistance. For your information After I run rarepair the listing of WAN Miniport (Network Monitor) disappeared from the Device Manager. I think this network monitor device is the culprit that cause the error as I have tried to disable this device and the modem make the usual dialing tone. My modem is now working as new. Thanks again for your help. I hope other users with this Error will be able to sort out the issue with "rarepair" like myself. MS should make this tool available on their PSS site.


----- Ken Wickes [MSFT] wrote: -----

Thanks for the feedback. Rarepair doesn't always cure 633, but it's the
best suggestion I had. Good luck.

 

[Eric]

My mother and father have a fairly new Dell Dimension desktop (about 2
months old). It is running Windows XP with a dialup connection to
their ISP. Suddenly they are getting an "error 633" when attempting
to dial up to their ISP, telling them that the port is already in use.
I have spent the last 24 hours searching the web about this issue.
There have been numerous postings about this problem, including in
this newsgroup. Unfortunately, it seems from what I have found so far
that the only fix is to reinstall Windows XP. In my opinion, that
isn't acceptable.

I am looking for a Ken Wickes from Microsoft who has been helping
people for the last year or so on this issue. Kevin, if you are still
on this newsgroup, is there any update? My parents are using a
Connextant Modem. I have found the KnowledgeBase article pertaining
to this issue, but they don't have a Palm, or any Palm software on
their computer. Furthermore, this problem started yesterday, December
6, 2003. Nothing has changed on their computer since November 26th
when I ran the latest Windows Update for them. The computer worked
fine up until yesterday.

A system restore to pre November 26, did not fix anything. I can't
find any conflicts on com ports, and an uninstall/reinstall of the
modem driver didn't work either. Help! Please tell me there is a
real fix for this now.

-Bryan Walton

I solved this problem. I did 3 things:
ONE: Disabling all the Miniport device. To do that:
Into device manager on the menu bar: Display/Display hide device (to
see all device) and into network adapter disable all miniport device

TWO: Delete all network adapter also

THREE: Delete all dial-up Connexion

Rebooot and create new dial-up connection

Et Voilà...
Sorry for my bad english...
Hoppe it's work for you to.