Well I won't bore you with the ridiculous hour on the phone I spent with Tiny trying to get past this Supanet thing, which according to technical support IS Tiny so they are basically forcing you to spend your internet access monies with THEM! I can't believe that's even legal surely?
To add insult to injury? About 40 minutes on an 0870 number and about 71/2 minutes on an 0906 number. Total cost of getting wound up by Tiny? £11.30. I'm going to sue!
Anyway, as far as I am concerned the whole thing is going back. God knows what it would be like if I have a real problem with the hardware if this is how badly they treat you in trying to resolve something as simple as this.
My opinion, I will never touch Tiny with a barge pole ever again!
One very disgruntled ex Tiny Customer

any idea how you get on to supanet if it says modem is disconnected??

I have found a relatively simply way to deoptimise the SUPANET ISP pre-loaded on Tiny Computers. It was advertised in the Computer Active Magazine issue 174. Log onto www.tiny.com/deopt and follow the on line instructions [ not much help if you dont have access to the internet I know but presumably people can access via Supanet itself.] You need your orginal Tiny order number. You then receive a deoptimisation key which you down load. I have since succesfully installed AOL so I know it works !!

My new 17" laptop arirved yesterday.
BEFORE reaching the de-optimsing stage (which I was well clued up on thanks to all similar comments above), I had called Tiny no less than 5 times since the 21 days (normal delivery) to wonde rwhere my laptop had got to. Anyway 43 days after ordering YIPPEEEE it arrived.
The 1st task on the list was to de-optimise (love the term!!). But 1 second after turning on I notice 2 deffective pixels on the screen (which I can live with).
I am much appreciative of all the comments on here, and CAN confirm that all my homework paid off. I had successfully de-optimised within half an hour of switching on the laptop for the 1st time. I am how ever somewhat nervous that some gremlin is going to bar me from accessing other ISPs in the future, but hopefully not.
It seems the key bit to get to is the "manual update" from Supanet.
I dread to think how people new to computers would manage anything as complex as this, but then I suppose many would be satisfied with Supanet.
The laptop is sturdily built, and I have no complaints with its performance YET (apart from those 2 minute diffective pixels)
Hopefully I will have yeras of joyful experiences from the Tiny laptop, but my inclination could not have been more negative towards Tiny in the run up to the arrival of my machine, if it weren't for he fact that I consider myself capable of getting out of most predicaments on computers.
To sum up .... I de-optimised thanks to all I'd learnt on here, within 30 minutes of starting up a new laptop, with no call to the 'hot'line. AND I'm very chuffed with myself :-) !! Good Luck to everyone else.

I'm glad to say I have managed to unlock the grasp of Supanet! I used the deopt procedure from the Tiny/Granville website and am pleased to say it works.
For weeks I have been trying to use another ISP and it just wouldn't work. I spoke to someone at AOl for advice in why this would be happening and as soon as I mentioned Supanet he knew and said that there was most likely a lock on using other ISP's.
Angry at this idea, I looked at various IT forums and found this website which has been very helpful. Reading through months of postings, I found a few solutions. It seemed that the way to go was to get the de-opt number and voila! I am now registered to an ISP and everything is working fine.
I cannot believe that Tiny/Time/Comp Shop or whatever name they call themselves are allowed to get away with this! It is bad enough that their customer service is awful.

I would just like to say to that person who accused everyone of moaning, I am an ex-happy customer of Time. I bought a laptop last year and if's been fine. On the strength of this I bought another laptop this year for my son, which most definately isn't.
I was lied to by the salesman when I asked about the operating system he said its the same as last time. It was the same salesman and he remembered us. Last time I got restore disks, this time I didn't. I refuse to pay more, we bought a warranty which we paid extra for only to find that it does not give us anything at all. I rang Customer Services they told me then that they don't give restore disks. The PC is also faulty (keyboard fault) and I have complained to trading standards but so far I have got nowhere. It is less than two months old. As I am very good with computers, I normally support others, I don't need support myself, I have tried downloading drivers for the model of video card they said was in it, but they don't work either. I am very suspicious that I did not get the card I paid for which should have been an NVIDIA.
The only way you can talk to time is to pay or talk to Customer Services who can't help you anyway. This is wrong, I want to cancel my agreement and take my custom elsewhere

HELP!!!!!
Tried the latest suggested methods for deoptimising from Supanet/Time with no success.
When I tried to get supanet.co/cgi-bin/deopt, it just told me it had been removed.
When I tried to get www.timecomputers.co.uk/deopt, I got FORBIDDEN You don't have permission to access /deopt on this computer.
If I go with my local server KAROO for £40 they send me an external modem and connections. I'm quite willing to do this to get rid of Supanet, and according to Andy Hardie this should work if I follow his instructions to download the drivers from the connexant website, but I don't want to go for this until I'm certain I can shake off Supanet.
Any further suggestions gratefully received.
SteveG, Hull.

I have just managed to dump supanet. I went to www.tiny.com/deopt
You just follow the instructions, but you do need to enter your original order number from tiny, so I hope you kept your receipt. I thought by doing this that aol broadband would finally sign up first time round, but it doesn't. I have to remove the usb cable and reinsert it, then aol runs. Anyone know what might be causing this?
Cheers
Amy

I have found the following method to increase your chances of success.
Use a large white card. Print address on one side and your letter of complaint in large letters on the other. Post second class to every outlet for "Time" PCs. you can find.
Time will know everybody who handles this card will read the contents. If you send enough the press will get a hold on it too.
Worked for me on other customer service bandits.

Thanks for all the help, I am now connecting without supanet ( has taken 4 months !).
Next problem - my dvd burner deceids it is only a cd drive when copying dvd`s, another Tiny trick?
I have removed power 2 go and tried reinstalling drivers, also, at times it decides the rom drive is empty, but only when it is a dvd I am copying.
Any help would be much appreciated, as Tiny don`t give a **** !