My wife and I share a Dell Latitude laptop, running Windows XP Professional SP2 with Norton Antivirus. We each have separate logons to the computer. My wife uses the Yahoo email service, and accesses email through the web based interface using Internet Explorer. I use our ISPs (Telstra) email server and go through Microsoft Outlook to read email. If my wife checks her email through Yahoo and then logs-off the computer, any subsequent attempts by me to use Outlook for email fail with the errors 0×80042108 for my POP3 email server and 0×80042109 for the SMTP email server. The only way to fix this problem is to restart the computer. The problem only started when we switched from Transact broadband onto Telstra ADSL. I have tried disabling Norton Antivirus but this does not resolve the issue.

To confirm what I am reading is correct, you and your wife have separate Windows user accounts on the computer. This means that when your wife uses the computer she logs onto her specific user account. Then, when your wife has finished, she logs-off her user account taking you back to the Windows logon prompt (or Welcome screen) allowing you to logon to the computer. Should this be the case, the potential cause of this problem may be quite simple and hopefully also simple to fix.

The error code 0×80042108 indicates that ?Outlook is unable to connect to your incoming POP3 e-mail server?. Likewise, error 0×80042109 indicates that ?Outlook is unable to connect to your outgoing (SMTP) e-mail server?. This means that your computer cannot connect to the external mail servers to receive and send email. The most elementary reason for this occurring is that you are not connected to the internet. This could be occurring because the internet connection is established when your wife uses the internet under her user account, but when your wife logs-off the computer, the connection is disconnected and cannot be re-established until you logon to your account.

This is an interesting scenario, since usually with ADSL and broadband connections the ISP provides a modem/router device. This device connects to the internet on behalf of the computer, so the computer does not need to do anything special to establish an internet connection. All the computer must do is request an internet resource (such as a web page or email), which prompts the modem/router device to connect to the internet and retrieve the resource on the internet. As you can see, this separates the internet connection process from the computer, allowing multiple computers on a home network to share the one internet connection, as they would all connect through the modem/router “gateway” device which provides internet to all computers (eliminating the need to have one computer always on as an internet gateway for the other computers on the network). That aside, it seems that your new internet connection simply has an ADSL modem. This ADSL modem would act much like a normal dial-up modem ? it provides the hardware necessary to establish an internet connection. However, the ADSL modem itself does not control the internet connection (i.e. connect and disconnect the internet). Instead, a computer needs to control the connection and establish an internet connection. This would also explain why the problem only occurred after changing from Transact to Telstra ADSL. It is likely that under Transact you were using a broadband router (which controlled the internet connection), but under Telstra ADSL you have an ADSL modem where you need to manually establish the internet connection.

As you logout of a user account in Windows this closes all processes and programs running under that user, including any active internet connections. Therefore, you cannot keep the connection active during this process, since you are logging out of the user who initially established the connection. That said, there are a few methods you can use to get around this issue. The first and simplest is to manually re-establish your internet connection when you log into your user account. You should be able to complete this operation by opening the Telstra ADSL utility once you login under your user account and then reconnect to the Telstra ADSL service. While this is the simplest solution, it is not the most elegant. The next option is to use the Fast User Switching facility in Windows XP. This will allow you to switch users, but not log out of the users. Therefore, in theory, the internet connection should remain active as you are simply switching to your user account, essentially leaving your wife’s account running in the background. To do this, once your wife has finished and you want to switch to your user account, go to the “Start” menu > “Log Off”. In the window that appears, click “Switch User”. The Welcome screen should appear, allowing you to logon to your user account. Once you have logged on, you should be able to use the internet without reconnecting. To switch back to your wife’s account, follow the same procedure again to switch back.

Fast User Switching is usually enabled by default on Windows XP. However, if the “Switch User” option is not available the Fast User Switching facility may have become disabled on your computer. Never fear, as it is a relatively simple process to re-enable this feature. Go to the “Start” menu > “Control Panel” and open the “User Accounts” control panel. In the window that appears, click “Change the way users log on or off”. Tick the options “Use the Welcome Screen” and “User Fast User Switching” and click the “Apply Options” button. Close the User Accounts window.

A final option for working around this issue is to purchase and install an ADSL modem/router. As discussed before, the ADSL router is an all-in-one unit which will connect to the internet on behalf of any computers connected to the router. You can purchase ADSL routers from most computer shops for around $150. Without knowing the exact configuration of your computer and ADSL connection I cannot provide specific advice on the type of router you should consider purchasing, so therefore I suggest you talk with the people at the computer store and also conduct your own research to ensure you purchase a product which will meet your needs.