Thanks! I'd have to reread this and keep it in mind. Here are some things I poked out.
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No problem-- I'm currently fighting my Alienware's internet stuff-- but it's deep in Win10, and I'm reluctant to re-install a fresh Win10. I don't know why that is, really-- I've re-done Win10 at least 10? times now? I was always mucking about with it on my old laptop, which was old when I bought it, so I had nothing in it, program wise. I think I'm reluctant on this one, as it's new, and I have invested quite a bit tweaking it just how I like it. It's my main machine (my other one is a Microsoft Surface Go).
Yeah. It comes with the phone service. It works well with my laptop but the neighbor is a computer techy and giving me the desktop and monitor, with more memory [think its called] than my laptop at 2GB for $100. I told him let me see how long it runs before I give him anything this month..
Good! That is literally 1/2 of your battle, eliminated right there: Your provider knows you are using it as a hot spot, and they approve. With cell phones? Getting approval also means getting tech support-- not trivial. Since it also works with a different machine? We may simply ignore the cellular side of things going forward.
He was telling me about Windows 10 and how all the new stuff is messing everything up. I'm not sure what metered is so the question is over my head unfortunately..
Yeah.... people love to diss Micro$oft. I understand why, and I sympathize. However: Windows 10? Is literally the best OS they have ever created-- far from perfect, naturally. But it is what Windows 95 was advertised as being.
When W95 came out? The hardware simply was not up to the task, and didn't catch up for quite some time...
That being said? Windows 10 is amazingly resilient, far better than previous versions. It is somewhat over-bloated with "nag you" stuff, but really, unless something is going wrong, or you are trying to do something off the beaten path? The nagging really isn't a terrible idea--
and you can disable all of that. I have not done so, for exactly the reason that it reminds me I'm treading out of the Standard Path.
Metered: Measured, calculated, quantified, put-a-ruler-to, keep track of, limited, boxed-in, walled off.
Windows 10 assumes that it has all the internet it could possibly need or want. This is, of course, a Lie. Nobody has that kind of internet-- even if you do have fibre (optical LASER connection).
In truth? Whatever you have, is actually Good Enough. However, it may not be entirely
free. You may not have unlimited access. You may have maximum volume of Internet Traffic-- measured in bytes (typically), Kilobytes (1000 bytes) or Megabytes (a million bytes--give or take). This all depends on where and how you get your Internets. Obviously, if you are connected Directly To Al Gore's Secret Intertubes Via a taunt Clothes Line and two Tin Cans? You do not need to worry about such mundane things.
Microsoft actually recognized awhile ago, that some people? Are always On The Go-- and they use various cellular methods to get to the Internet-- and in North America, and much of Europe? Cellular based internet is always purchased in limited quantities. Not unlike your fuel tank on your vehicle (unless you're electric...). Since more and more people are going that direction? They want
Control over how much Internet gets used, and by whom.
They added a setting in Windows: Metered. It is either on or off. If
off, Windows assumes it may use the internet as much and as often as it "thinks" it needs, to get updates and whatnot. (such as reporting back to Microsoft any time Win10 breaks-- it's one reason why Win10 is so robust, in fact... you can opt out of that, by the way....)
If Metered is On? Windows politely won't use the Internet for updates, or much of anything, really, until you give it permission-- and even then, it'll ask "are you sure?" before going forward. In short, it's a way of controlling Windows access to the internet for housekeeping tasks. Such as updating your anti-virus....
Note: Even if on? That won't affect you in any way, shape or form, from using Chrome or Firefox or even Edge to go out and Surf The Intertubes, watch YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc, etc, etc. When you deliberately access the internet in that way? Windows 10 assumes you intended to use the internet connection, metered or no.
Metered only affects Windows doing it's updating, error reporting and things such as that. It never affects you, browsing, emailing, etc.
He gave me this portable mini wifi adaptor thing. You stick it in the USB slot and it's supposed to connect to wifi hotspots. I'm not sure why it would say the ethernet plug is unplugged, though. I pulled out the wifi thing and looked in the back and couldn't figure what it was referring to.
Okay. That's the USB adapter that I and others have mentioned before. Many USB ones include an RJ45 port or hole or jack. Think North American Telephone Jack--only wider. It actually does come from AT&T/Bell Labs, from way back in the Day, for multi-line telephony. A "regular" telephone jack has 4 or 6 conductors (or towards the end, just 2). It's rectangular, and has a tab you have to depress to get it out of the hole. The RJ45 plug/jack has 8 conductors, so it's wider than the older teleco one. When networking was just getting started, back in the 1980s, companies quickly adopted this plug/jack as it Just Worked. It was user-level connect/disconnect without tools. It was robust, it made darn good connections (if it was made up to spec), and was pretty dust-proof too-- the way it went into the hole, "swiped" the connectors, displacing all but the stickiest of debris. That is what "ethernet plug" means. "Ethernet" is an old term, not unlike Scotch Tape means "cellophane sticky tape that is clear". It used to be a brand, as I recall, but quickly became a generic term for
wired networking.
Wired networking is useless to you, if you are using a cellphone to get to the internet. Cell phones do not come with RJ45 jacks. That being said? There are devices, which do-- and they use cellular networks to get to the internet: Think-- a smart phone that has no screen, does not make phone calls, and only uses DATA part of a cellular service plan. These, however, are Old Tech, and have pretty much faded away... not unlike wired telephones...
Bottom Line: If your dongle (or it's software) is whining about ethernet plug? It's at the end of a short list of Things It Tried And Failed. Treat that as a message, that it cannot "see" any internet connections, either wired or wireless (wifi). It may be old enough, to have become obsolete-- all too common, if it's an El Cheapo non-brand from China. (Not to disparage Chinese Electronics: You get exactly as much quality as you are willing to pay for, from China,
and not one farthing more. If the company that made the dongle has not updated any drivers to Windows 10 standards? It's too old, and not worth pulling your hair out-- even if "free".
Free is not always actually free...
