Thats because the providers never package things up cleanly. If they sent a client on a disk, a la AOL, and they set things up to autoconfigure, they'd never need to speak to the clients.
You've obviously never attempted to get a Windows product working for someone whose previous experience with a computer is limited to "Solitaire". I've done work with this ISP, and I can tell you it's nearly the most frustrating experience I've had in my life -- Windows has bizzare conflicts with software eating other software, ports getting set up wrong, and just general nastiness. Even the slickest software needs helpline time - for whatever reason. -jo ( --------[ Jonathan D. Cooper ]--------[ entropy@intnet.net ]-------- ) ( PGP 2.6.2 keyprint: 31 50 8F 82 B9 79 ED C4 5B 12 A0 35 E0 9B C0 01 ) ( home page: http://taz.hyperreal.com/~entropy/ ]---[ Key-ID: 4082CCB5 )