[diggeryo]

Please someone tell me if I'm going crazy.

I keep AOL on my computer in case my cable connection goes down, and I need to access the Internet through dial-up.

Well, a few months ago, I saw that AOL had released v9.5 of their application. I had v9.1 on my computers, so I upgraded all my computers to v9.5. Well, last week I had a hard drive problem, and I had to reinstall Windows and all my other applications. When I went to the AOL site to download v9.5, it listed v9.1 as the latest version. The only place I saw v9.5 was under the "beta" page.

Now I am almost 100% sure that when I did download v9.5, it was NOT from a beta page. It was from their normal "download AOL software from here" page.

Did AOL recently downgrade v9.5 back to beta? Did I somehow travel back in time to before v9.5 became a final release? Or am I going crazy? What's going on here? Please someone explain.

thanks,
mike

[Advertisements]

Not sure if this will help but it may give you some information.
Go to one of the systems that still has 9.5 on it.
Open AOL and at the top there should be a HELP button or text. Click that and then click on About
See if it says BETA or not. If it does then at least you know you are not going back in time.

[rshaffer61]

Not sure if this will help but it may give you some information.
Go to one of the systems that still has 9.5 on it.
Open AOL and at the top there should be a HELP button or text. Click that and then click on About
See if it says BETA or not. If it does then at least you know you are not going back in time.

[diggeryo]

Thanks for the suggestion. No, it does not say "beta." This is what I get:



AOL 9.5

for Windows XP and Windows Vista

Revision 4337.29


© 2009 AOL LLC.
All Rights Reserved

This product may be covered by one or more of the following U.S. Patents. See http://about.aol.com/patents for further information.

All trademarks, logos and sensory marks used in this software and on the AOL Online Service are the exclusive property of their respective owners, and should not be used without their permission.

The following notices apply to the third party technologies included in this product:

AOL 9.5 contains Adobe® Flash® Player software by Adobe Systems Incorporated, Copyright © 1995-2007 by Adobe Macromedia Software LLC. All Rights Reserved. Protected by U.S. Patent 6,879,327; Patent Pending in the U.S. and other countries. Adobe and Flash are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Includes Sentry Spelling-Checker Engine Copyright © 1994-2003 Wintertree Software Inc. and WGrammar Grammar-Checker Engine Copyright © 1998 Wintertree Software Inc.

Includes MPEG Layer-3 audio decoding technology licensed from Fraunhofer IIS and THOMSON multimedia.

Includes encryption software from RSA Security Inc. © 1994 RSA Security Inc. All rights reserved.

May contain technology from SupportSoft, Inc. <http://www.supportsoft.com> © 1998-2003 SupportSoft, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Portions utilize Windows Media Technologies. Copyright © 1999-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Includes LIBJPEG software that is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group and is Copyright © 1991-1998, Thomas G. Lane. All rights reserved.

Includes GIFLIB software that is Copyright © 1997, Eric S. Raymond.

Includes libmng software that is © 2000-2002 Gerard Juyn ([email protected]).

Includes zlib software that is Copyright © 1995-2002 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.

Portions created by gSoap are © 2001-2003 Robert A. van Engelen, Genivia inc. All rights reserved.

Includes Dolby VLB technology that is Copyright 1998-2002 by Dolby Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved. Portions of this product are manufactured under license from Dolby Laboratories. 'Dolby' and the double-D symbol are trademarks of Dolby Laboratories. Protected by one or more patents owned or licensed by AT&T Corporation, Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., and Sony Corporation. A list of applicable patents can be found at the website located at <www.vialicensing.com>.

[happyrock]

Please someone tell me if I'm going crazy.

I keep AOL on my computer in case my cable connection goes down, and I need to access the Internet through dial-up.

there are many other dial up ISP's that are much better than AOL...AOL will use way more resources and their business practices are crap...try peoplepc....
Unlimited, low cost dial up Internet service that’s loaded with features. $5.47/mo. for the first 3 months, then only $10.95/mo...
they are cheaper and they will not try to take over your computer...
I would remove anything AOL related...

Edited by happyrock, 13 June 2009 - 11:31 AM.

[diggeryo]

I would remove anything AOL related...

I agree with you 100%. However, the AOL account is paid for by my employer, so I have to go with whatever they choose.

Edited by diggeryo, 13 June 2009 - 11:33 AM.

[briisthemn]

You are not crazy. I had the exact same experience. I downloaded AOL 9.5 on 1 computer, which it is still on, and it's not a Beta, to see how it was. And a few months later, when it seemed OK, I went to to downdload it on my other computer, and it was gone, and 9.1 was the highest version being offered. Apparently for other people, 9.5 was not OK, and it was put back into Beta, "9.5 refresh" has been in Beta for a while.

I am using AOL 9.1 now, and the process WAOL.exe hangs a lot, and even shutting it down via the task manager does not seem to help. I have shut down all of the AOL processes that way, and thru the AOL program, but sometimes, I just can't get AOL to start up. I get the hourglass for a little while, and then nothing.

And despite shutting down WAOL.exe via the task manager, when I ultimately give up and restart the computer, it shows the computer is forcing WAOL.exe to shut down.

I have Windows XP Pro, Version 2002, SP 3, on a 1-year old Lenovo Think Pad T-61p, with pretty much all the bells and whistles. I have tried to see if Kaspersky Internet Security 8.0.0.506 is interfering with it, but it does not seem so...Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks.