Supanet seam to have removed the link to run the De-optimise programme on there website and left a phone number to make some more money out of us. So to put it all together this is what to do.
Part 1
Go to START, RUN, Type in “regedit”
Find the directory
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SOFTWARE
PDCR4032
In this Directory there are three files of HEX data named band 001. band 002 and band 003.
Select each file in turn and re name it by right clicking on it selecting “Rename” type in oldband001 and press enter, Repeat for the other two files then close the editor.
This on is own did not unlock my modem but I did not get the Supanet start up page so a good sign so far.
Part 2
Change the Modem Driver.
Go to
http://www.conexant.com/support/files/check_chipset.pdf
If you need to check the type of Modem you have download and run the file:-
List Modem Application for PC (16KB)
This will confirm the type of Modem it runs under DOS.
or read the page at:-
http://www.conexant.com/support/md_driverassistance.html
Click the Agree box at the bottom of the page.
On the next page that appears find
WinXP PCI 3/15/2004 1.14MB HSFp_WinXP.zip
That is if you have a HSF type modem or select the one that that you have.
And down load this file it will fit onto a floppy if required.
Unzip the driver file you have down loaded and run the EXE file this load its self.
Power down and reboot and you should be OK and just to tidy up do the next part.
Part 3
To re-establish the Explorer Icon on your PC. Go to START, CONTROL PANEL, then in control panel click on ADD/REMOVE software icon. This will open the add/remove software window, in the tab on the left hand side of this window click on ADD/REMOVE WINDOW COMPONENTS and a new window will appear, in the list that appears click on INTERNET EXPLORER in the list so that a tick appears in the box to the left of it, then just click NEXT and follow the instructions on-screen, this should install regular internet explorer onto your PC.
Many thanks to the other contributor that this information came from I have just put it on one page and added a bit.
Good Luck ALL

My first advise to anybody trying to buy a new computer is at all costs avoid TIME/SUPANET, it is the worlds worst service ever.
I have been trying to deoptimise modem with major problems and no one at supanet or time really cares.
I am still waiting for refund of £300 for service contract i never agreed to in first place( 1 month on), I had to pay cash of £1500 as they messed finance contracr, I have spent hundreds of pounds on calls and still no response.
I will now be suing and trust many of you agree with me what a mistake it was in purchasing or dealing with this so called company.
It is aptly named as you will always have stress and watse considerable TIME to deal with the many problems.

Greetings.
I would be very interested to swap details with you as I have just taken delivery of my new Tiny Computer and am having all the problems everyone else has.
I think its appalling that they can get away with it, have spoken to credit card people, trading standards, ASA and they all say that little can be done as Tiny have done their homework.
I have also been told that they have been the subject of 2 or 3 Watchdog type progs...so the more information we can all share the better!

Reg,
thanks for that info.
as one perhaps not quite as adept or brave as you, i did the first step and found that the number in my regedit is 70240 ( not 00540 as you wrote)
Does this mean that they have changed things and that its not worth doing the rest of your suggestions?
Would greatly appreciate any update on this from you ro anyone else.

sign up with scumnet, go to home page.
on the toolbar, click on supanet in the address box and delete , type http://www.tiny.com/deopt/ in the address box, not the search box!
www.granvilletechnology.com will come up fill in relevent info, and your free. takes about 10 mins, no buying new modems etc this worked for me

Revised De-optimisation procedure (1st October 2004):
Time have revised the procedure to de-optimise their PCs to stop them from being locked to Supanet. They no longer have a Classic account, and the Supanet Account Maintenance screen no longer gives an option to de-optimise. The following new procedure, which was obtained from a very helpful assistant on the Tiny Helpline (0870 830 3281), after queuing for only 7 minutes, should now be used instead:
1. Sign up to the FREE Pay-As-You-Go service, to gain access to the Net
2. Log on to the Net and go to: www.timecomputers.com/deopt/
3. When the Granville window opens enter the requested details (first name, surname, PC model and serial number) and Submit
5. Make a note of the deopt key which then appears (9-character code)
6. Select Open to download the de-optimisation programme (Options are Open or Save, and it seems to save to the hard drive anyway)
7. After download is complete, enter the deopt key code.
This completes the process. You should then be able to set up another ISP and also change the default page from Supanet to whatever you want.ou will find that the Supanet setup screen is still present, but it will only directly open Supanet, so remove this icon and set up the standard Internet Explorer icon via the Control Panel, as detailed in other correspondence.
Having done this two other problems were found, and resolved as follows:
1. I used an 8-character password for my new ISP, but it kept saving as a 16-character password, causing the ISP to return an invalid password message. The following solution to this was found on another site, and works fine. Apparently Windows XP pads out the password to 16 characters for security purposes. If you re-enter your actual password, and then enter spaces until there are a total of 16 characters the problem goes away (at least it worked fine for me on Abel Gratis).
2. The internet connection icon which should appear in the bottom right-hand taskbar near the clock was no longer present. Again, the following solution to this was found on another site, and works fine.
Go to Control Panel > Network & Internet > Setup or Change > Internet Properties > Connections > Settings > Properties > General. Tick the 'Show Icon when Connected' box. This should cure the problem.
Hope this all works - it did for me.
Sam

I recently cracked this problem by combining two solutions offered by others
This part of the solution was originally found on www.vunet.com/thread.jsp?forum=15&thread=31720&message=165495&q=supanet
and was posted by phil howie I had to modify his original solution
1. Go to the Conexant web site, Driver Support section, and download the driver file for an HSF modem. (you have to click the "agree" button to get to the next page). You will probably want the one called "HSFp_WinXP.zip" Save the file to disc, then unzip it to a place you can find it later.
2. Right click the My Computer icon on your desktop, select Properties, select Hardware, click the Device Manager button.
3. Find the modem in the listing, right click the entry, and select uninstall. Confirm the action in the resulting box.
(at this point phil said to reboot but I found the machine found the old supanet driver if you did this so i went straight to the control pannel with out re booting to add the driver)
4. go to conrol pannel add new hardware the 'new' hardware, and asks if you want to install it - say yes, and tell the Wizard where to find the drivers (where you unzipped them to earlier )If this does not work go to control pannel/ system /hardware device manager /modem and add the driver here.
5. That's it. The modem now shows as a Generic. .
http://www.conexant.com/support/md_driverassistance.html
http://www.conextant.com/support/files/HSFp_WinXP.zip
The second half of the solution is then to follow James Thompsons solution to edit the registry posted on this forum 25th May 2004
From Start go to Run and type "regedit"
This will open up the registry editor
Find the directory
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SOFTWARE
PDCR4032
In there you will find 4 files Default and band0, band1, band2. Simply right click on the files band0, band1, band2 and rename them oldband0, oldband1, oldband2, this will unlock your supranet modem.
Change your dialup settigs to your old ISP and no more Supanet.
hope this works for you

i love it how everyone who has bad experiences comes and has a good moan .. yet ... there is no site for all the good happy customers ... at the end of the day ... people who moan and groan about the service are the people who * know it all and do not want any warrenty of any kind* ... and you pay for what you get ...if you dont take top support you will not receive it .. you take the standard 1 year .. you get the lowest ... makes sense ... just moan moan moan .. lease all you people have somewhere to get it off your chest ! .. a rather happy time/tiny customer !

Today I tried to set up my mother on ntl on her Time laptop. I kept getting "Invalid user name and password". Deoptimisation of the Time modem to allow any ISP was very simple and now works for ntl.
Go to www.timecomputers.co.uk/deopt. Enter your name (no need to put in your real name). I then gives you a deopt key number.
Click to download the deopt client and run a file setup.exe. Then follow the wizard that appears, enter the deopt key number, click continue and it tells you that the key has been validated. Your modem should then be OK. It only took me a couple of minutes. Hopefully Time have made it simpler to dothis because of the complaints they have had. Unfortunately Time/Supanet still got 2 weeks business out of me while this was being sorted.

Having had a week of problems I found 2 solutions to the problem - an external modem works with no problems at all via the USB port ( I know its a cost but for £20 it cheaper than ringing technical support) and the other is downloading the drivers from the connexant website. I uninstalled the old ones, re-booted the machine, it found the hardware, I directed the hardware wizard to the new file. Re- booted the machine and away it went.
Hope this works for others.