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Surfing
The Internet - Microsoft Internet Explorer
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Microsoft's Internet
Explorer started life as a rather suspect Web browser
(based on the old NCSA Mosaic browser) that paled in
comparison to its competitor, Netscape's Navigator.
That's changed. As of this writing, MSIE currently holds
something around 60-70% of the browser market, has
relegated Netscape's browser to has-been status, and
looks to be the cutting-edge utility leading Web usage
well into the next millennium. How did this happen?
Several reasons. MSIE has always been a free download,
in contrast to Netscape's offerings, which until
relatively recently were fee-based in some form or
another. (Microsoft has also insisted on bundling
unremovable versions of IE with its Windows operating
systems, to the point where lawsuits have been filed.)
Microsoft has also been relentless in offering their
browser as free components of various ISPs and Web-based
services, the most prominent of which is MSIE's
replacement of the sluggish and badly designed AOL
browser. Netscape tried to win users with its "suite" of
Net utilities, bundling an e-mail client (Messenger),
Web creation utility (Composer), and newsreader
(Collabra) along with its browser into one conglomerate
called "Communicator;" Microsoft hustled to match it
with its own suite of goodies, including "lite" versions
of its e-mail client Outlook and Web creation utility
Front Page. Perhaps most importantly, at least from a
developer's viewpoint, MSIE has vaulted over Navigator
in technological savvy, incorporating support for new
technologies such as cascading style sheets, dynamic
HTML, ActiveX controls, and other goodies faster and
better than its rival. Now that Netscape is just another
arm of America Online's corporate octopus, MSIE has
little true competition for its ranking as winner in the
browser wars.
MSIE certainly is not the be-all end-all of browsers:
it's so rife with security holes and vulnerabilities
that in 2004 the US Department of Homeland Security
recommended that security-conscious surfers find an
alternative to IE for their use. Eek! It is true that
XP's Service Pack 2 contains a number of patches and
hotfixes for a variety of IE vulnerabilities, but new
ones are being found every day (literally), not everyone
uses XP, and not every XP user wants to take a chance on
installing SP2 to their machine. IE's biggest problems
include its security zones, its support of ActiveX
controls, its support for scripts that can allow Web
sites to hide browser toolbars and menus, and its
support for Dynamic HTML. IE users can shore things up
by disabling Active Scripting (which disables
JavaScript, ugh) and ActiveX controls in both the
Internet and Local Machine zones. Downloading and
installing the latest security patches to both IE and
Outlook helps, as does sending and receiving plain-text
messages in Outlook (Outlook works with IE, and a
vulnerability in one means the other is wide open also).
Using an up-to-date antivirus program, and refusing to
click on links in unsolicited e-mails are also standard
security measures. You may want to restrict your surfing
to sites you know are legit; in this case, you'll
activate IE's security measures and only go to sites
listed in its Trusted Zone.
According to the folks at Extreme Tech, the new features
driving MSIE 8 should include: a strong new set of
Parental Controls; new Dr. Watson crash-monitoring and
reporting software; a revamped Mail Center that would
provide better unified inbox (voice and data) services;
a revamped, integrated version of Windows Media Player;
new user interface/theming functionality; task-based
templates for sending and storing photos and files; and
richer e-mail editing services. 8 is still under
in-house development, so we'll see when they announce a
beta for the public. (It doesn't, however, include a
pop-up ad blocker.) Wonder what happened to Version 7?
The latest iteration, MSIE 6, has been out for a while.
While the early buzz promised a smaller, leaner browser,
this most definitely isn't the case. MSIE 6 is an
enormous download. Why? Well, the interface is changed,
with the new ability to display streaming headlines,
play MP3 files, access the Microsoft IM client, and so
forth, but the big reason seems to be the new browser's
ability to display Web pages in a variety of formats --
strict HTML 4 standards, the more relaxed HTML 4
"transitional" standards, or the older HTML 3.2
standards. This doesn't mean much to the average surfer,
but it's a huge deal for Web designers. Other noteworthy
items: until recently, MSIE lacked the Java Virtual
Machine that has routinely been bundled with earlier
versions of the browser (and an integral part of
Netscape and other browsers). Microsoft and Sun aren't
happy with one another right now, and as a result MSIE 6
isn't very Java-friendly. You can surf to
java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/jre/download-windows.html for
a MSIE-friendly version of the Java Runtime Environment,
which includes the Virtual Machine. (Several experts
recommend using the
Sun Java machine, but not
uninstalling the MSIE Java machine, since uninstalling
such Windows applets is tricky and can result in
problems.) In a related loss, MSIE is no longer
compatible with Netscape-style plugins, which will annoy
some users to no end. In its favor, it seems to be quite
stable (for now), and its Explorer Bar seems to be
popular. It also tries to reintroduce "push" content in
the form of "Web Accessories," early versions of which
are already available in MSIE 5x. You can find out what
Web Accessories are available at
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/webaccess/default.asp.
Its new privacy and cookie management features are also
quite welcome. Some users are finding the picture
options and other new features irritating, but you can
turn these off by going into Tools, Internet Options. My
initial reaction to MSIE 6? Personally, I like the
better stability and reliability that version 6
provides, but still I don't see a need to go through the
download and installation process for the modest
enhancements over 5.5 (my current browser of choice).
It can be very difficult to know what version of
Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine is running on your
machine. One simple way to find what version of the Java
VM is current on your PC is as follows: Open Windows'
Command Prompt. Type JVIEW. Press Enter. The JVM version
number appears on the right side of the first line
that's returned. The latest version is 5.00.3805. If you
don't have the latest version of Java installed, use
WinZip to open the XPSP1.EXE file (you'll probably only
find this file on your system if you chose to download
the much larger Network Installation version of SP1;
it's also on the CD version of the upgrade.) Extract the
MSJAVX86.EXE to a new folder on your hard disk.
Double-click that file to run the installation for
Microsoft's 3805 version of its JVM. If you have both
Microsoft's and Sun's JVMs on your computer, choose
which one you prefer by going through Tools, Internet
Options, Advanced, and scroll down to the Java(Sun)
entry is. Check the "Use Java 2" if you prefer the Sun
Java machine. Deselect it to enable Microsoft's JVM.
Don't uninstall the Microsoft JVM, just leave it alone.
Security issues abound with MSIE. The general address
for Microsoft security patches is
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/default.htm.
Here's Chris Pirillo's suggestion for setting your
Security settings (modify as you will) on your copy of
MSIE 6 or 5x: First, go into Tools, Internet Options,
Security, Custom Level, and choose the following.
Download signed ActiveX controls: Prompt.
Download unsigned ActiveX controls: Disable.
Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as
safe: Disable. Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins:
Enable. Script ActiveX controls marked safe for
scripting: Enable. Downloads: Enable. Font
download: Enable (set to Disable if you're
paranoid). Java Permissions: High safety.
Access data sources across domains: Disable.
Allow META REFRESH: Enable (set to Disable if you're
paranoid). Display mixed content: Enable (Prompt
if paranoid). Don't prompt for client certificate
selection when no certificates or only one certificate
exists: Disable. Drag and drop or copy and paste
files: Enable (Prompt if paranoid). Installation
of desktop items: Prompt. Launching programs and
files in an IFRAME: Prompt. Navigate sub-frames
across different domains: Prompt. Software
channel permissions: Medium safety. Submit
non-encrypted form data: Enable (Prompt if
paranoid). Userdata persistence: Enable (may be
set to Disable if you're paranoid). Active scripting:
Enable (Prompt if paranoid). Allow paste operations
via script: Enable (Prompt if paranoid).
Scripting of Java applets: Enable (Prompt if
paranoid). Logon: Automatic logon only in
Intranet zone (Prompt if paranoid).
Sometimes the Security information is pretty esoteric.
Click the question mark in the upper right-hand corner
and then click on the security feature that you want to
learn more about.
If you're roaming around in the Security settings on
MSIE 5, you may run across the unusual menu option, "Fortezza."
It's a hardware-based method of encoding data for secure
transmission of information over a network. Employees of
the U.S. Defense Department use this form of encryption
via Fortezza crypto cards in their PCs. If you don't
work for the feds, feel free to turn this option off
(it's on by default). Click OK to finish.
A security issue for MSIE 5 users who share their
computers: you may not want to let MSIE store secure Web
pages in its cache. Why not? Because these pages retain
things like passwords, credit card numbers, and whatever
other personal info you may have entered during your
latest online purchase or registration. Again, it's a
simple job to keep MSIE 5 from saving secure pages:
click Tools, Internet Options. Click the Advanced tab.
Scroll down and check the box marked "Do Not Save
Encrypted Pages To Disk." Click OK to finish.
Another, less well-reported security issue concerns
"Browser Handling Objects," or BHOs. These are little
goodies that many shareware sites use to distribute and
implement their products. Unfortunately, most BHOs are
adware, meaning that they send info about your machine
back to their companies. Sometimes BHOs are configured
to disable their associated shareware if uninstalled,
meaning that if you want to use the downloaded program,
you have to put up with tattletale BHOs on your machine.
A partial workaround has appeared in the form of the
freeware BHO Cop 1.0, a goodie from
www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,270,00.asp. BHO Cop
disables BHOs without uninstalling them, meaning that
you can still run the associated software, but the
damned things are no longer squealing on you. Another
freebie, BHODemon from
www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm, is also
quite well recommended. Recent versions of MSIE allow
you to disable BHOs from IE's options Advanced tab:
you'll need to uncheck the "Activate/Enable third-party
browser extensions." This isn't very selective, however.
A somewhat related issue is MSIE's attempt to be helpful
by letting us "debug" problems with Web sites' bad
JavaScript. Why do the vast majority of us even want to
play with this one? Disable script debugging by going
through Internet Options, clicking on the Advanced Tab,
and under the Browsing heading, checking the box beside
"Disable Script Debugging."
Some people are having problems with the MSIE 6 download
from the Windows Update site. The program works fine,
but Win 2000 and XP users aren't getting the download
options that others get. After they download the
setup/download management tool, they need to create a
shortcut to it and edit the properties of the shortcut
so that it runs with the following switches:
C:\IE6SETUP.EXE /C:"IE6WZD.EXE /D /S:""#E"""
The same tip can be
used on NT or any system that tries to dump you straight
into the setup without giving you a download option. The
above works best by NOT going to the WindowsUpdate site,
but rather by going to the alternate site at
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/ie6/default.htm
and using your browser's "save as" or "save to" command
(usually via right click) rather than just clicking on
the download link. "Save as" lets you download the
IE6SETUP.EXE installer to the location of your choice.
There is a forthcoming Service Pack for MSIE 6, but as
of now it's for XP/2K users only. Naturally there are a
number of patches available through Windows Update.
IE 6 users may notice that they can't right-click a Web
page and get the "View Source" option. This is a bug
that's easily fixed. Click Tools, Internet Options. In
the "Temporary Internet Files" section, click "Delete
Files." However, this doesn't always work for some
folks. Other possible fixes: click Tools, Internet
Options, Programs tab. Next to HTML Editor, select your
editor of choice, like Notepad or FrontPage. If this is
not the issue, check the selected HTML editor program by
opening it, and make sure it works and is not damaged or
corrupted. If none of these options works, you can try
hacking your Registry (be forewarned; hacking your
Registry can be treacherous). First, close IE. Now go
into your Registry and create this registry key if it
does not exist (and it mostly likely does not):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Internet
Explorer \ View Source Editor \ Editor Name . Modify the
Default value of the "Editor Name" to the path of the
program you want to use to view source code. For
example, C:\WINDOWS\NOTEPAD.EXE. If the path contains
blank spaces, add the quotation marks. Currently, View
Source feature works with programs that permit spaces in
the command path. WordPad, for example, does not permit
spaces in the command path, so you cannot specify
WordPad as your default editor for viewing source code.
Some users of MSIE 6 find themselves wishing they'd
never seen the damned thing, so they want to uninstall
it. Not so fast, my friend. If you're running XP, you're
stuck with it, so read no more. If you're running 2K,
NT, or a member of the 9x family, you can pry it loose,
but it ain't easy. Try reading the Microsoft Knowledge
Base article at support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q312474
for some ideas and instructions. Warning: you'll have to
reinstall Windows.
If you upgraded your Win 98 computer to XP, you may
notice that you're having problems connecting to Web
pages -- although your dialup connection works, you
can't get any pages to load. Easy enough; you just need
to tweak your software settings. Open Internet Explorer,
click on the Tools menu, and choose Options. Switch to
the Connections tab and click once on the first
connection listed under "Dialup and Virtual Private
Network Settings." Click the Settings button and uncheck
the checkbox next to "Use a proxy server for this
connection." You should do the same thing for every
connection listed under "Dialup and Virtual Private
Network Settings." What is happening is that IE is
trying to pull its Web sites from a non-existent
computer. This happens occasionally depending on the
configuration of your computer before upgrading. You
should verify that the proxy server setting is unchecked
before upgrading to XP unless you actually have a proxy
server that requires you to leave this setting turned
on.
If you install MSIE 6 over an older version, the other
version remains on the drive, taking up possibly
unnecessary space. If you don't want to keep it, reclaim
that space by uninstalling it. Fire up Add/Remove
Programs from Control Panel. Scroll to the listing of
"Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and Internet Tools."
When a new dialog window pops up, you'll be shown three
options ("Add a component," "Repair Internet Explorer"
and "Restore the previous Windows configuration") and an
"Advanced" button. Select Advanced, and you'll be given
a list of individual components for "uninstall" and an
option or deleting the entire backup information for
previous versions of Internet Explorer. Of course, with
MSIE 6 proving as prone to corruption and dysfunction as
any other iteration, you might want to keep the older
browser as a backup.
Internet Explorer has a repair tool that sometimes
works. To try it in IE 6, go through Start, Run, and
type SFC /SCANNOW. Click OK, and follow the prompts.
When System File Checker is through, reboot. Microsoft
describes another method, but it's complicated and
requires editing the Registry. You can find it at
support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318378. Both methods
listed require that the Microsoft Windows XP CD-ROM be
available.
Running IE 5? Try its repair tool by going into
Add/Remove Programs, clicking into Install/Uninstall,
click Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and Internet Tools,
click Add / Remove, and click the Repair Internet
Explorer option. Click OK.
In IE 5.01, click Start, Run, and type MSINFO32.EXE.
Click OK. The MSINFO32 tools will open. Click Tools,
Internet Explorer Repair Tool.
Sometimes IE 6 forces Web graphics to resize their
display to fit the screen. If you'd rather see the
graphic as it was intended to be seen, force IE to
conform by going through Tools, Internet Options, and
click the Advanced tab. You'll find an entry under
Multimedia options titled "Enable Automatic Image
Resizing;" uncheck this.
A cumulative patch for Internet Explorer that combines
the functionality of all previously released patches for
IE 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0, as well as eliminating six newly
discovered vulnerabilities, is now available. The patch
also makes a further refinement to cross-domain
verification check that was first introduced in Internet
Explorer Service Pack 1. Find out more from these sites:
www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ms02-066.asp
and www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS02-066.asp.
Version 5.5 has been around for a while now, and many of
us are still using it. It's a small improvement over the
previous MSIE 5 and 5.01 iterations. Basically, 5.5 adds
improved handling of sites with multiple frames,
built-in access to MSN Search, a print preview feature,
the new Channel Definition Format, extended support for
DHTML, better support for 128-bit security encryption,
minor improvements in its support for the CSS1 protocols
and streaming media, the ability to display text
vertically (good for Chinese and Japanese users), and
support for several proprietory features that look neat
on MSIE's display but aren't supported by any other
browsers. The free version of Front Page has been
replaced with a combination HTML editor and page viewer
called MSHTML. The whole shebang requires a relatively
hefty 45MB to 111MB of hard drive space, depending on
what options you include. Currently, Microsoft is
including 5.5 with Windows Millennium. Microsoft has
just released an IE cookie-management utility, available
at www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/
download/preview/privacy.htm. Microsoft has released
the first Service Pack for IE 5.5, which supposedly "include[d]
improved support for DHTML and CSS... [provided] the
ability to preview Web pages exactly as they will appear
when printed... ma[de] it easier than ever to connect to
the Internet and find the information you need... [and
allowed you to use] Connection Manager as your default
dialer when Dial-Up Networking is already installed."
None of this is true: SP1 is nothing more than a bundle
of 14 bug fixes, some of which are causing more problems
than they are solving. The initial word from users is
very ambivalent, and doesn't seem to be
platform-specific: i.e., some Millennium users love it
while others curse it, same for Win2K users, 98
users.... To download the service pack, or for more
information, go to: www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/ie55sp1.htm
or via Windows Update. Read Scot Finnie's article on
problems with the Service Pack at content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/insider/2000/39.htm.
The second Service Pack is now available from Windows
Update, but you should check out the Knowledge Base
article at www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/ie55sp2.htm
before downloading it. Like all IE Service Packs, it
installs IE all over again; unless you save your
Favorites and configurations, they'll get zapped.
Want to run Apple's QuickTime on MSIE 5.5 SP2 and 6?
Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download/qtcheck/
for an ActiveX-based plugin.
Older versions of MSIE abound on users' computers, of
course. The slightly earlier 5 and 5.01 versions improve
on the hugely popular 4.x versions by shrinking
(somewhat) the humongous size of previous incarnations
of MSIE, upping the capabilities of its Web Search
Assistant, adding components used by MSOffice 2000,
smoothing offline browsing capabilities, making
customization much easier, squashing some installation
bugs, revamping Outlook Express, adding a Radio toolbar
that lets you listen to radio broadcasts over the Net,
and best of all, getting rid of the misbegotten and
widely despised Active Desktop and its associated
Channels. Of course, every version of 5.x has its crop
of bugs. Microsoft released a "fixed" version, 5.0a,
which fixed nothing and actually added bugs. But a lot
of users seem happy with MSIE 4 with the second Service
Pack and the Active Desktop disabled. It seems stable
enough and supports all but the most esoteric Web
technologies. Like every other Microsoft user, you're
probably confused by all the versions and options
available. Don't worry, Microsoft adds to the confusion
by making a document detailing the different install
options available at support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q264/1/49.asp.
Meanwhile, go to www.microsoft.com/ie/ for all
the available versions, patches, downloads, and updates.
Win 98SE and Win ME users, you can't run MSIE 4.x on
your system, as these versions of Windows depend on MSIE
5 core files to function. Find out what version you're
running at support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q164539.
You can easily download the entire IE5 package without
installing anything; instead storing the full setup
files locally: Go to the IE download site at
www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ and start the download
process. The first piece that comes down, a file called
IE5SETUP.EXE, is a very small front end that's actually
the download manager for the full install. That
Setup/Download Manager gives you the option to save
files locally. Here's how: After you've downloaded the
first IE5SETUP.EXE file, run it, and select the "Install
Minimal, Or Customize Your Browser" option when it
appears. On the "Component Options" dialog, click the
"advanced" button and select "download only" and click
OK, and Next. The setup program will then download all
of IE5 to whatever location on your hard drive you
select. You can then install the browser from there,
and/or leave the files there for later use.
Need to check your MSIE version number? Go through Help,
About. Here's what each version number stands for:
- 5.00.2014.0216
Internet Explorer 5
- 5.00.2314.1003
Internet Explorer 5 (with Office 2000)
- 5.00.2614.3500
Internet Explorer 5 (Win 98 SE)
- 5.00.2919.6307
Internet Explorer 5.01
- 5.50.4030.2400
Internet Explorer 5.5 and Internet Tools Beta
- 6.0.2800.1106
Internet Explorer 6
Of course the version
number of my old copy of MSIE 5.5 (5.50.4134.0600) isn't
on this list, so who knows what I'm running? I'm
assuming it's the Win ME version of MSIE.
Want to get rid of MSIE 5.x? It isn't much easier than
getting rid of IE 6. Win 9x users in particular may find
it difficult to so. Another article at Microsoft's
Knowledge Base, support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q222/5/64.asp,
will lead you through the process, but you won't like
it: it basically involves reinstalling Win 98. The fun
never stops, huh?
Some people who install MSN (The Microsoft Network) on
their computer find that the MSN icon has replaced the
MSIE icon in the upper right corner of the browser. If
this annoys you, change it back by renaming the icons.
Click the desktop, then press F3 to open Find. Search
the hard disk for SMMBRAND.BMP and MSNBRAND.BMP. When
you locate these two files, change their extensions to
OLD (or any three letters other than BMP). When you
restart the computer, your original icon should
reappear. (This is a documented issue in IE 4; I'm not
sure if it happens with the newer versions.)
Find out more about your spiffy "new" copy of MSIE 5x
from the Help menu's Tour and Online Support selections,
or point your browser to www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/tour/basics/default.htm.
The Online Support selection offers a direct link to the
Microsoft Knowledge Base as well as providing links to
downloads and FAQs. You can access the Online Support
page directly at support.microsoft.com/directory/.
Installing MSIE 5.01 over MSIE 5 could be a lot
glitchier than you think. The Microsoft article at
support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q246/1/94.asp
will help you perform a clean uninstall of MSIE 5 so
that you can install version 5.01 without any problems.
This is all according to Microsoft, so take it with a
grain of salt. And, U.S. and Canadian users, don't
forget to pick up the high encryption (128-bit) version.
It's a huge (up to 142MB) download, so be ready to wait.
Also, 5.01 has problems working with sites using Secure
Site Encryption; download the patch from
download.microsoft.com/download/ie501/
schannel/5.01/W9XNT4/EN-US/q247367.exe.
Prefer older versions of MSIE? Go to cws.internet.com/ie.html
for archived, downloadable versions of the earlier
versions of Internet Explorer back through 4.01, along
with their plugins and PowerToys. And Microsoft makes
older add-ons available at the following site:
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/previous/webaccess/default.asp.
If you use America Online, CompuServe, Earthlink/Mindspring,
MCI Internet, the Microsoft Network, Netcom (now part of
Mindspring), Prodigy, or WorldNet, you're the proud
owner of MSIE - or you can be with a click or two. Many
of these ISPs bundle a proprietory version of IE with
their software.
New users of MSIE 5x, configure it properly from the
get-go for maximum efficiency. Turn on the most powerful
encryption options (choose Help/About to see if you have
anemic 56-bit encryption; you can get 128-bit encryption
from Microsoft if you live in the U.S. or Canada). Set
your AutoComplete options to decide whether or not to
save passwords automatically. Adjust your Security
settings to prevent, or not prevent, ActiveX and Java
applets from coming into your system. Fine-tune the
browser settings (Tools/Internet Options/General) to set
how many days you want to keep visited Web sites in your
cache (and available for offline browsing); if you use
cached pages often, increase your cache size. Peruse the
Advanced options in the Internet Options dialog box; if
you don't know what one of these tweaks does, click the
question mark on the title bar and then click the item.
Make sure to customize Search options; IE 5 has powerful
search options, and your decisions (i.e. which search
engines to use as well as
encyclopedia/dictionary/thesaurus access) can make them
even stronger. Just click the Search button on the
toolbar to begin configuring. Remember, you're not
limited to MSN Search as your default search engine;
click Search and, when the Search Assistant opens, click
Customize. Reset the amount of hard drive your temporary
folder is hogging: go through View/Internet Options,
click on Delete Files under Temporary Internet Files to
clear your current cache, then click on the Settings
button and make sure that the "Amount of disk space to
use" option is set to 1%. If you like, you can set MSIE
5 to automatically clear your cache through Tools,
Internet Options, Advanced, and in the Security section,
check "Empty Temporary Internet Files When Browser Is
Closed." Another option is to disallow MSIE from
automatically checking, and setting, your Internet
settings: go into Tools, Internet Options, Connections,
and uncheck the "Automatically Detect Settings" box. You
may find that your browser moves a good bit quicker
(check it by surfing to www.dslreports.com/stest).
Don't forget that some badly behaved sites reset MSIE's
search engine to their own default engine (usually
something obscure and worthless), and can also stuff
your Favorites folder and navigational bar with their
own links. Use the Customize feature to purge your
browser of this gunk.
Some users are finding themselves with a greyed-out left
pane in Windows Explorer after installing IE 5.5. Here's
the fix: save the following as a Registry file (.REG)
and import it into your Registry:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
\ CLSID \ {EFA24E64-B078-11d0-89E4-00C04FC9E26E}]
@="Explorer Band"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \
{EFA24E64-B078-11d0-89E4-00C04FC9E26E} \ InProcServer32]
@="C:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM\\SHDOCVW.DLL"
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \
{EFA24E64-B078-11d0-89E4-00C04FC9E26E} \ Implemented
Categories]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \
{EFA24E64-B078-11d0-89E4-00C04FC9E26E} \ Implemented
Categories \ thre{00021493-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
Note: I haven't tried
this myself, so let me know if it works for you.
Facing a reinstall of MSIE 5x? Try visiting
www.portablelife.com/tips/story/0,1091,2516,00.html
and following their instructions concerning the "Repair"
option. It might save you a time-consuming
reinstallation. Make sure you have the MSIE 5.5 Repair
tool installed by going to Add/Remove in Control Panel,
clicking on "Microsoft Internet Explorer 5" in the
window of the Install/Uninstall tab, then clicking on
Add/Remove. Select the "Repair the current installation
of Internet Explorer" radio button. Click on OK. Can't
find the Repair tool? If you're running Win 98 SE, you
may have to install it manually through Add/Remove.
Google, the world's best search engine, is one of your
browser's search engine choices. My suggestion is to
bypass the MSIE search utility altogether and use the
neato keeno Google Toolbar (available at
toolbar.google.com/). You can also access Google's
search facilities directly from your address bar by
typing "www.google.com/search?q=fubar", where "fubar" is
your search term. Right now, the Google Toolbar doesn't
work with Netscape, AOL's browser, Opera, or CompuServe
2000's browser. Credit where credit is due: a lot of
wonks really like the new MSN Search engine.
You can also search within a single page by using the
Find option. Select Ctrl-F to launch the Find dialog
box. If you want to search a portion of the page, first
click it with the mouse. Then choose Up or Down in the
Direction area of the dialog box. Consider cutting and
pasting the same search string you used at a search
engine.
Save your searches by clicking the Search button on the
toolbar, then clicking the Customize button in the
Search bar and selecting the Previous Searches check
box. This will store the last ten searches you did so
that you can redo those searches easily.
Want to make Google your default search in your Search
bar? Enter www.google.com/google.reg in the
address bar of IE. In the File Download window, choose
Open. Click on Yes when you're prompted to merge the
file into the Registry, and OK to clear the confirmation
afterward. The next time you click on the Search icon on
the toolbar, the Google search field will appear in the
side window. This tip is especially useful because the
Customize Search Settings dialog mentioned earlier does
not include Google in its list. But if you type the
specified URL directly into the address bar, there's a
possibility your browser will simply open the REG file
as it would a text file, right in the browser window.
You'll be better off paying a visit to www.google.com/options/defaults.html.
This page has a link to the GOOGLE.REG file, and
clicking that link will give the results described
above. The page also includes tips for making Google the
default engine in other browsers, and it even offers
another REG file that restores your IE options to the
way they were.
Change your cache size in MSIE by going through Tools,
Internet Options. When the dialog box opens, click the
General tab (if necessary -- it depends on the version
you're running) and then click Settings. When the
Setting dialog opens, adjust the "Amount of disk space
to use" slider to increase (or decrease, if necessary),
your IE cache size. Generally, if you've got lots of
unused hard disk real estate, it's worthwhile to
increase your cache size. Conversely, to save hard disk
space, decrease it.
More about the Temporary Internet Files folder: man, is
it a spacehog! The best way to clean it out is to select
Tools, Internet Options and click the "Delete files" tab
under the General tab (don't forget to delete the
subscription content, unless you specifically want it).
This gets rid of most everything except a big, ugly file
called INDEX.DAT. It doesn't go away, it just continues
to swell, like the Blob. And of course, you can't delete
this file from inside Windows. Get rid of this sucker by
restarting your machine in DOS mode. At the resulting
C:\ prompt, type this line:
DEL
C:\WINDOWS\TEMPOR~1\INDEX.DAT
MSIE 5
users, type this line:
DEL
C:\WINDOWS\TEMPOR~1\CONTENT.IE5\INDEX.DAT
Press Enter, then reboot.
Windows will immediately recreate INDEX.DAT from
scratch, but it will be much, much smaller. Win ME users
can't access DOS quite so simply, so here's a rather
painful way to handle this particular issue. Go into
Control Panel and launch the Users applet. You'll either
be able to go in as a different user, if your computer
already has multiple users enabled, or you'll get the
Enable Multi-user Settings wizard. As you go through the
wizard, create a user called NOINDEX. Do NOT enter a
password. On the Personalized Items Settings page, check
"Downloaded Web Pages." When you're finished, Windows
will ask if you'd like to restart the computer; say Yes.
You'll be logged off and logged back on as "noindex."
Now log out again and come back in as yourself. Windows
will tell you that you haven't logged in with this name
before; click Yes, then log off again and come
back in as "noindex." While you're under this user name,
go into C:\WINDOWS\COOKIES and C:\WINDOWS\TEMPORARY
INTERNET FILES and delete the INDEX.DAT file or files.
Log out and come back in as yourself. The INDEX.DAT
file(s) is, or are, gone. For now. (There are a number
of free- and shareware programs out there which delete
your INDEX.DAT file for you. It's probably worth your
time to hunt one down and use it instead.)
While we're tidying up, here's a nice way to close the
yea dozen windows that MSIE sometimes opens. Hold down
the Ctrl key and click the taskbar of the windows you
want to close, one by one. Now let off of the Ctrl key
and right-click any of the selected windows. Choose
Close. Watch them all close. Or if you'd rather, you can
tile them horizontally or vertically. Just right-click
the Date/Time display in the bottom right of the System
Tray, and choose "Tile Windows Horizontally" or "Tile
Windows Vertically."
And clean up MSIE's right-click menu while you're
tidying. You'll see pointers to programs no longer on
your machine and so forth. If you're brave enough to
delve into the Registry, launch REGEDIT and navigate to
the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \
Internet Explorer \ MenuExt . Each subkey represents a
menu item. Some will include an ampersand (&) to define
the underlined key associated with the command. To get
rid of a command, you can delete the corresponding key,
but if you want to play it a bit safer and less
permanently, just highlight the key you're considering
deleting, choose Export from the Registry menu,
and export that branch to a file. Now delete the key.
Open the exported .REG file in Notepad, find the string
MenuExt near the end of the long third line, and chance
it to MenuExt- . Save the file and double-click it to
launch it. Your no-longer-used menu item's Registry data
will be saved in the Registry under the key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Internet
Explorer \ MenuExt . If you decide you want to bring the
key, and the corresponding menu entry, back someday,
just reverse the above procedure. Remember, for
permanent expunging, just delete the key without going
through all the rigamarole.
MSIE's AutoComplete feature is a good deal more powerful
than its earlier version. It will save just about any
kind of form-based input (name, address, credit card
number, etc.) that a Web site may ask of you, along with
passwords, previously visited URLs, etc. MSIE will ask
you if you want it to remember a new password when
you're asked for one; you probably already have it set
to remember form-based info. Is this a problem for
security and privacy? It sure can be. You can control or
disable AutoComplete's functions through the
Tools/Internet Options menu selections. Click the
"Content" tab and find the "Personal Information" panel.
Then find and click the "AutoComplete..." button to
bring up the AutoComplete Settings box. You can decide
what info you want AutoComplete to save and what to
ignore in this box. Of course, what's already saved
needs deleting. Click "Clear Forms" and "Clear
Passwords" to scour the saved data. The URLs are saved
in MSIE's History section, so clear that by going under
the "General" tab and clicking "Clear History." While
malicious Web pranksters shouldn't be able to access
MSIE's stored data, anyone using your PC sure can. If
MSIE remembers your dial-up networking data, someone
else can fire up your PC and do a little online shopping
with your credit card data. Be aware of what your
situation is, and decide how much security/privacy you
need, and configure AutoComplete accordingly. You can
learn more about this feature at Microsoft's Knowledge
Base: support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q217/1/48.ASP
and a similar, more user-friendly article on ZDNet at
www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,2587278,00.html.
Sometimes the AutoComplete function gives you too much
information, or the wrong information -- such as
repeatedly presenting you with an old, unwanted search
phrase or an e-mail address that you mistyped. Get rid
of unwanted entries by clicking on the text box to bring
up the selections, highlighting the unwanted one, and
pressing Delete. You can edit entries by opening the
box, choosing the mistyped entry, correcting it,
submitting the form so the correction will be saved, and
using the Back button to go back to the form and
deleting the incorrect entry.
The "Use inline AutoComplete for Web addresses" function
determines the order in which previously visited Web
sites appear in IE's Address drop-down listing. They're
in alphabetical order, ignoring the "http://www" portion
of the addresses, and are derived from your History
folder. The function is on by default, and can be turned
off by going through the Advanced tab of the Internet
Options menu.
A similar function to AutoComplete is the "friendly URL"
selection, which displays only the "useful" part of a
Web address. To select, or deselect, this option, go
through Tools, Internet Options, and click the Advanced
tab. In the Browsing Group, choose Show Friendly URLs.
If you don't like the effect, just go back and deselect
the Show Friendly URLs box.
MSIE 5 gives you a warning when you enter a secure site
using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption. It also lets
you turn the warning off for future use, and many people
do just that. Some find themselves later wanting to know
when they're entering or leaving an SSL site, but
they've turned the warning off. How to re-enable it?
Easy enough. Just select Tools, Internet Options, and
click the Advanced tab. Check the box marked Warn If
Changing Between Secure And Not Secure Mode. Click the
OK button to save your changes.
Some websites show a small graphic logo in the MSIE
address bar, instead of the standard IE "e on a page"
logo (Netscape does not show the alternate logo in its
address bar). If you want your site to display one of
these (they're called favicons), you should
create one (a 16X16 icon), upload it to your site, and
link to it in your page by using the following code:
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/favicon.ico">
For more information, visit www.favicon.com/ and
www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/favicon.html. Keep up
with your own stored "favicons" with the free FavOrg
utility, available at www.pcmag.com/utilities/.
If you're finding that MSIE isn't showing these favicons
in your Address Bar, force it to do so by waiting for
the page to fully load, then dragging the generic IE
icon in the Address Bar directly to the right and
dropping it after the end of the address. Now the custom
icon will appear in the Address Bar (I've noticed that
on my computer I have to do this twice to make it work).
If you navigate to this site again, the favicon will
appear unless you've deleted the Temporary Internet
Files from your machine. Right now I know of no way to
automate this process, but keep watching this space --
some clever code warrior should have something on the
market soon.
See that "Go" button to the right of the Address Bar?
It's there so you can type in a URL and click it to --
surprise -- go to that site, but who uses it? Me, I just
type the URL and hit Enter. Get rid of the thing by
right-clicking the button and unchecking (by clicking)
the "Go Button" entry. Poof! Bring it back by clicking
somewhere in the Address Bar and clicking the entry
again.
An unusual feature of MSIE is the Passport option (known
as Wallet in version 4.x). This lets you store credit
card and other personal information for quick Web
shopping. Some people are fine with this, while others
don't feel secure enough to store their info on their
PC. It's your call. Find out more at www.passport.com/.
Not all e-vendors support Passport, but the Web site
lists those who do. You should also note that Microsoft
is getting behind Passport full throttle, virtually
slamming Passport down MSN, Outlook, Hotmail, and MSN
Messenger users' throats. It's completely optional and
NOT a requirement to use any of these services.
A neat little trick that works in just about all the
AutoComplete versions is this: Click in the Address Bar
and type, say, "www.a" (without the quotes). Hold down
the Ctrl button, and click the arrow at the right side
of the Address Bar to expand out the list of URLs in
memory. As long as you hold down the Ctrl button, you'll
only get the URLs that begin with the letter A. Another
neat little trick is to use the AutoComplete function to
open local folders within your machine. Start typing the
pathname and AutoComplete will start guessing. When it
guesses right, stop typing and hit Enter. And a very
cool shortcut is to simply type the name in the address
bar -- say, "fubar" (without the quotes). Then hit
Ctrl+Enter. The rest of the address, "http://www." and
"com," will automatically wrap around the word and the
browser will launch the page. You can also highlight the
Address Bar in nonframed pages by hitting F6.
OK, we've mentioned the Active Desktop, but what exactly
is it? Well, it's a feature that was introduced in MSIE
4 and not continued in 5.x. The idea is to have your
desktop emulate a Web page, sort of, with active links
connecting you to your stored files, your applications,
HTML documents, ActiveX objects, specially crafted
content provisions from outside Web sites (the puzzling
.CDF objects), etc. etc. (How do you know if you have
it? Look just to the right of your Start button -- if
you have a small toolbar containing icons for Show
Desktop, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express, you've
got it.) Microsoft provides a link to an Active Desktop
tutorial in MSIE, but oddly enough, it's located in a
wallpaper selection titled "wallpapr" and usually
selected as 4.x's default wallpaper. If you've changed
your desktop appearance, and lost the wallpaper and its
link to the AD tutorial, it's easy enough to select it
again, or you might do better to just find WALLPAPR.HTM
in your WINDOWS\WEB\WALLPAPER directory. Anyway, I've
been pretty disparaging about the whole concept, and
with good reason: it's heinously complex, prone to
misbehave, and generally not worth the trouble it
causes. On the other hand, there are people who like it.
I'm not going to go into great detail about the Active
Desktop, but some sources of information for the curious
can be found in the aforementioned tutorial as well as
at www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/features/default.asp
and at wsabstract.com/howto/active.shtml. You can
get a listing of Active Desktop items available on the
Web at www.iechannelguide.com. If you have MSIE
and want the Active Desktop, you can get it from
Microsoft's main IE page at
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.htm. I thought
Microsoft had gotten away from the Active Desktop
concept somewhat (hence its absence from 5.x), but the
idea lives on in Windows 98, some of the MS.NET
concepts, and the currently available Web Accessories.
It also is required in Win 98/ME if you want to do
things like change your wallpaper to something besides
the boring .BMP selections (discussed next).
If you've installed AD, you can use .JPEG/.JPG files as
wallpaper. If Active Desktop is available, right-click
the desktop and choose Active Desktop, View As Web Page.
Right-click the desktop again and choose Properties.
When the Display Properties dialog box opens, click the
Background tab, then click Browse. Locate the picture
you want to use and double-click its icon. Click OK to
close the dialog box and apply your selection. Without
Active Desktop, you can only use .BMP files as
wallpaper. This may be the most popular feature of AD.
You don't need the Active Desktop to use .JPG files as
wallpaper. Just find the image you want in MSIE,
right-click it, and choose Save as Wallpaper. You'll see
it listed in the Wallpaper selections as "Internet
Explorer Wallpaper." The hitch is that you can only save
one at a time -- if you select a second image as
wallpaper, the first is deleted. (This works with
Netscape as well.)
One popular use of AD is its ability to let you preview
graphics without opening them in a separate app -- if
you have AD installed, open a folder on your hard drive,
preferably one with some image files in it. From the
folder, select View As Web Page. Select an image file
(but don't open it). You should see a preview of the
image in the left pane of the folder. You may need to
expand the window to see the preview pane on the left.
You can also make all of your image files appear as
thumbnails by simply opening a folder containing image
files, right-clicking a blank area of the folder,
choosing Properties from the menu that appears, and
selecting "Enable Thumbnail View." Click OK, right-click
a blank area again, and click Refresh. If they don't
appear as thumbnails, select Thumbnails from the View
menu.
You can also view any displayed image in a Web page or
HTML document simply by dragging it to the Address Bar.
This works in Win ME for sure, and probably in 98 as
well.
You can use Active Desktop to choose whether to open
programs and files by clicking them once or twice.
Choose Start, Settings, Folder Options. Select Web Style
for single-click opening, or Classic Style for two-click
opening. You can also select Custom to take full control
of how folders appear. If you'd like to create your own
system settings smorgasbord, select Custom, "Based On
Settings You Choose:," then click the Settings button.
For instance, here you can choose to open each folder in
its own window, or open items with a single click. Make
your changes and click OK twice to close the open dialog
boxes. You can also choose to make all folders look the
same. Choose Start, Settings, Folder Options. Select the
View tab to bring it forward. Then click the "Like
Current Folder" button. Click OK to save your changes.
Opening Web pages is also quite simple; in fact, you
have several ways to open Web pages from within a
folder. You can click a favorite from the Links bar, or
you can type the full address in the Address bar. Or you
can choose a page directly from the Favorites menu.
Last, you can choose View, Explorer Bar, then choose
Search, Favorites, or History.
If you use the Active Desktop, you can create a toolbar
for any Web site or folder on your hard drive. Just
right-click a blank area of the Taskbar (for example,
just to the left of the System Tray, where you see the
Date/Time), and choose Toolbars, New Toolbar. Once your
toolbar is set up, you can click it and drag it to
another edge of the screen.
Use the Active Desktop to keep constantly updating Web
information flowing across your desktop. Go through
Control Panel's Display applet, click on the Web tab and
choose "View My Active Desktop as a Web Page." Click on
New and add the URL of whatever Web page you want to
display. You can configure it to update automatically or
manually through the Tools, Synchronize menu. You can
also set how many levels of Web content to display, and
allocate the amount of hard disk space you want to
devote to this.
The Quick Launch toolbar is a favorite of AD users.
Here's how to add your own shortcuts to it: select the
Start menu, then select Programs. Right-click Windows
Explorer (for example -- this works with any folder or
app) and drag it to the Quick Launch toolbar until you
see a thick vertical line. Release the mouse. You'll see
a pop-up menu. Choose Create Shortcut(s) Here.
Occasionally TweakUI will disable part or all of the
Quick Launch functions. Restore these functions by going
into TweakUI's applet in Control Panel, clicking the My
Computer tab, and putting checks in all the boxes. You
may also need to go into the IE4 page and and restore
the check in the "IE4 Enabled" box. Find out more info
at support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q199/O/59.asp.
By the way, you can modify any toolbar in MSIE by a
variety of methods. Hide them by choosing View, Toolbars
and deselecting the ones you don't want. You can move
one toolbar so that it shares the same line with another
-- click the vertical bar on the left of a toolbar until
you see a double-sided arrow icon, then move the toolbar
to the position you want and release the mouse. Choose
the Customize option to change icon sizes, eliminate the
icons for text descriptions, and more. And in IE6, you
can lock down the toolbar configurations by
right-clicking the toolbar in question and choosing
"Lock the Toolbar."
Shortcut to highlighting the Address Bar: Alt+D. Add the
Address Bar to the Windows Taskbar by right-clicking the
Taskbar and choosing Tools, Address (MSIE 4x and later
only). Use the Address Bar to tell you when a current
page was last updated by clicking in the bar and typing
javascript:alert(document.lastModified)
and pressing Enter.
In IE6, there's a new "Image" toolbar that shows up when
you hover your cursor over an image. It lets you save,
print, or e-mail that image, as well as offering to open
your "My Pictures" folder. Some sites don't allow their
images to be saved using the right-click method, but the
Image Toolbar lets you save these protected images (note
that in many cases, this is theft, so be warned).
Sidebar: many people don't like the Image Toolbar; they
find it blocks their view of displayed graphics. Disable
it by going through Tools, Internet Options; click on
the Advanced tab, scroll down to the Multimedia section,
uncheck "Enable Image Toolbar," and click OK.
If you use Windows 98/ME and MSIE5, you can run programs
by typing their names into the Address bar. Just enter
the application name and press the Enter key. For
example, we can launch Excel on our system by entering
C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\EXCEL.EXE in
the Address bar, then pressing Enter.
With your cursor in the Address bar, you can jump from
points in the address by holding down Ctrl while
clicking the left arrow (to go back) and the right arrow
(to jump forward). For instance, if your Address bar
displays http://www.toejumper.net/surf7/msie7.htm,
clicking Ctrl and the right arrow will jump to the point
after the last slash (/) and, if you click again, after
each dot (.).
Move smoothly through a displayed Web page by pressing
the spacebar to move down, or Shift+spacebar to go up.
Make a current Web page a favorite by pressing Ctrl+D.
You can also drag the MSIE page icon (top left corner)
onto the Favorites menu, hold it there until it opens,
and drop it in whatever Favorites folder you like. Once
you've added sites to your Favorites listing, you can
access the list in several ways. You can select the
Favorites menu, click the Favorites button, or choose
Favorites from the Start menu. The list is the same, no
matter how you access it, and points to the Favorites
folder on your hard drive, under the Windows folder. You
can alphabetize your Favorites by going through the
Favorites menu in the Toolbar (not the Favorites
button), right-clicking a particular Favorite and
choosing Sort By Name.
Probably the most complete way to handle bookmarked
Favorites in Win 98/ME is through Windows Explorer.
You'll create a two-paned Favorites Explorer window that
opens directly to your \WINDOWS\FAVORITES folder, shows
all your Favorites subfolders, and displays what's in
each one as you click it in turn. Drag-and-drop copies
and moves of multiple favorites icons are simple, and
it's easy to rename things or check their dates. To set
this up, right-click the desktop and choose New,
Shortcut. In the command line field, insert this line:
C:\WINDOWS\EXPLORER.EXE /e,ROOT,C:\WINDOWS\FAVORITES
Name the shortcut
"Favorites Explorer." Now right-click the new shortcut
and choose Properties. Click the Change Icon button.
Click the Browse button, navigate to your
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder, locate and highlight the
SHELL32.DLL file, and click Open. That will display a
large palette of available icons for your new shortcut.
Scroll to the right and choose the icon that shows a
folder with a blue asterisk or star on it; click OK
twice in selection to finish the job. Whenever you
launch this shortcut it will open a two-paned Explorer
window with the folder hierarchy on the left side
automatically anchored to your Favorites folder. You
should also place this one on your Favorites menu.
You don't have to search for the Favorites folder; you
can reach it from the Favorites menu. Click on Favorites
in Internet Explorer's main menu, right-click on any
submenu, and select Open in the context menu that
appears. This will open the subfolder corresponding to
that submenu in Windows Explorer. Click on the Up button
in the Windows Explorer toolbar to select the Favorites
folder itself. Then drag the Favorites folder from
Windows Explorer's Address bar to IE's Links toolbar.
When you click on the shortcut in Links, the Favorites
folder will open in Windows Explorer. Pressing F3
invokes the standard Search dialog, and you can launch
the found favorite by double-clicking on it.
If you've got a lot of favorites, save disk space by
listing them as a single, clickable HTML document.
Choose File, Import And Export, then click the Next
button. Select "Export Favorites" from the list of
options, and choose the root Favorites folder. In the
following dialog, Export your Favorites "to a File or
Address." Your best bet might be to browse to your My
Documents folder and storing the output in an HTML file
there, but you make that decision. Either way, when
that's finished, you can open the exported file up in IE
and drag & drop its Address bar icon onto the Home icon
in the IE button bar to set the document as your
browser's home page. You can also export your Favorites
to Netscape for use in that browser.
Win ME users may have been dismayed to note that their
IE Favorites don't appear on the Start menu, as in Win
98. You can add your Favorites back to the Start menu by
right-clicking on a blank space in the taskbar,
selecting Properties, clicking on the Advanced tab,
clicking the Add button, and clicking the Browse button
to find the program. Now click Next, select the Start
menu folder in which you want to place the program,
click Next, enter the program's name, click Finish, then
click OK.
An oft-overlooked feature of MSIE is the Links Bar. It's
provided as a separate toolbar that sits below the
Address Bar, and by default it's stuffed with links to
the various Microsoft sites, although you can
reconfigure it as you like (keep reading). If you don't
see it, go through the View menu, select Toolbar, and
click Links. Want to hide it? Right-click on a blank
area of the Links bar, and choose Links to deselect it.
Drag the Links Bar on top of the Address Bar. Now you
can access full views of each by just double-clicking
either Address or Links, while keeping unused toolbars
out of view.
Highlight your favorites on the Links toolbar by
right-clicking the shortcut, choosing Properties, click
Change Icon, and choose a new icon from the list that
appears. Don't like the ones in the list? Use the Browse
function to hunt up other icons (.ICO files) on your
machine; when you find one you like, double-click it to
select it and choose OK twice to lock your choice in
place. Add favorite sites to the Links bar by clicking
and dragging its page icon (from the left side of the
Address bar) to the Links toolbar. When a vertical line
appears, you can release your mouse. Your favorite
should now appear on the Links toolbar. Move the buttons
around by clicking and dragging. Get rid of unwanted
buttons on the Links bar by right-clicking the unwanted
link and choosing Delete. For serious reorganization, go
through Favorites, choose Organize Favorites, and
double-click the Links folder to access the bar's inner
workings. You can add, delete, create subfolders, and
rearrange your Links to your heart's content.
Some folks like to get rid of the Links folder, but they
find, to their great consternation, that it comes back.
What to do to kill it once and for all? In REGEDIT,
navigate to the key HKEY_ CURRENT_USER \ Software \
Microsoft \ Internet Explorer \ Toolbar. In REGEDIT's
right-hand pane, find a string value named
LinksFolderName and rename it to NOT_LinksFolderName (so
you can easily reverse this change if you wish). Now
right-click on the right-hand pane, choose New | String
value, and name the new value LinksFolderName, leaving
its data blank. When you delete the Links folder one
final time, IE will not re-create it.
Want to alphabetize your Favorites without manually
moving everything or tampering in the Registry? It's
simple. In your Favorites menu, right-click any item in
the list to bring up a new dialogue menu and select Sort
by Name. There you go. There's also a Microsoft KB
article worth reading at support.microsoft.com/?kbid=259735
that basically indicates IE won't sort your favorite
sites alphabetically if there are more than 193 items in
the list. The way around this is to organize your sites
into subfolders, or just delete unused items until you
have less than 193.
You can use Windows Explorer instead of Organize
Favorites, and get a number of options that Organize
Favorites doesn't have. The Organize Favorites option
houses 4 basic operations: Create Folder, Rename,
Delete, and Move to Folder. However, each of these
options are severely restricted by the fact that only
one object can be manipulated at a time. Here's how to
get more control: First, open a browser window, then
open Favorites. Right-click any folder in the list to
bring up a new Dialogue Menu. Select Explore. Use the
left side of the Explorer Window to navigate up 1
directory level to the main Favorites folder. The
Explore option won't be shown unless you right-click
over top of a Folder. If you don't have a Folder present
in your Favorites menu, you can create one by visiting
the Favorites Menu, select Organize Favorites, and
create a new folder. You can also execute Explorer from
the Organize Favorites menu. Be careful; since the
Explorer view provides a raw directory view of actual
files which reside on your system, use caution when
moving files. Moving the wrong file to the wrong folder
can compromise functionality of your system.
You can create a button on the Links bar that turns Web
graphics on and off. Microsoft provides the patch, but
doesn't give any help at all in installing or using it.
The folks at www.cooperstown.net/tips/ provide a
link to the Microsoft download site (currently at
www.microsoft.com/Windows/ie/WebAccess/IE5Tools.asp,
and walk you through the installlation. Any time you
want to surf as quickly as possible without worrying
with graphics, this is the way to work it.
Use MSIE 5.5's Personalized Favorites function to keep
your oft-visited pages within easy reach. Open Internet
Explorer and choose Tools, Internet Options. When the
Internet Options dialog box opens, click the Advanced
tab. Now locate "Enable Personalized Favorites Menu" and
its check box. Click OK to close the dialog box and
record your selection.
Don't like the way Personalized Favorites functions?
Sometimes it's a pain, especially when it tries to do
your thinking for you (a Microsoft trait) and show you
only the Favorites you've used recently. By default,
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher hides
Favorites that are seldom used. If you don't like this
feature, you can turn it off. To turn off Personalized
Favorites, choose Tools, Internet Options. When the
dialog box opens, click the Advanced tab. Now, deselect
the check box labeled "Enable Personalized Favorites
Menu" and then click OK. When you run IE, it will
display all of your Favorites no matter how often you
use them.
You can customize the Quick Link buttons on the Links
toolbar to display shortcuts to favorite Web sites. In
Navigation (as above), the Page drop-down menu shows you
the settings for each individual link. Use the Name
field to label the button. You can also move individual
Links around on the toolbar (click and drag), or even
delete them (right-click and choose Delete).
You can also customize IE 5 with specially made Explorer
Bars. These are small windows that open up within IE
that display specific info while leaving the rest of the
display open for normal browsing. Some bars display
horizontally, while others display horizontally or
vertically. At least 6 bars are available from
www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/webaccess -- these
include Surf Monkey, a kid-safe Web browsing utility;
Alexa, which displays site-specific info, such as
contact info and links, for the Web site currently
active; The New York Times (also available at
www.nytimes.com/partners/ie50/ie5.html), with news
updates every 10 minutes along with market info and
stock quotes; AltaVista, for AV Power Tools; and
Bloomberg, for stock and market info. If you want any of
these, download them, install them by double-clicking on
their icons, restart IE, and go through View/Explorer
Bar and click on the bar of your choice.
Customize the way that hyperlinks appear on your page --
make unvisited links bright red, visited links a kicky
peach, whatever. Go through Tools, Internet Options, and
from the General tab choose Colors. In the Links area,
you can choose from a menu of color choices.
You may be using a version of MSIE "customized" by
another provider. They can, and often do, change the
logos, add the name of the company in the title bar, and
other self-aggrandizing annoyances. You can either live
with these changes, download a clean copy of MSIE from
Microsoft, or if you're up for digging into the
Registry, reverse the provider's changes. Here's what to
do: Back up your Registry files, then launch Regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \
Internet Explorer \ Toolbar. In the right pane, select
BrandBitmap and SmBrandBitmap. Delete these entries. To
get rid of the name in the title bar, navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Internet
Explorer \ Main \ Window Title. Select the name in the
right pane and delete the entry. Exit the Registry
Editor and restart your computer. This should do the
trick. As always, if you don't feel comfortable playing
around in the Registry, don't do it!!
A related tip to the above: sometimes "co-branded"
browsers also display the name of the vendor in the
title bar. Annoying. Get rid of it by once again delving
into the Registry, navigating to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Internet
Explorer \ Main \ WindowTitle, selecting the name in the
right pane and delete the entry. Exit the Registry
Editor and restart your computer.
MSIE speaks Spanish, and several other languages. Change
from (and back to) English by going into Tools, Internet
Options (in IE 4, that's View, Internet Options). In the
General tab, select Languages. Pick the language you
want to use and click OK. Even better, use the free
Worldlingo plugin (for version 5.x), which translates
links, doesn't ask for page refreshes, and is available
on most download sites.
Select your Start page by doing either of two things.
You can go through View, Internet Options, and either
type the URL of the start page into the dialog box,
click the Use Current button to set the start page to
whatever page you're currently on, click the Use Default
button to set it for Microsoft's home page or whatever
the default setting is, or Use Blank to give you a
quick-loading blank page. Secondly, if you're on the
page you want as your default, you can click on the icon
in the left of the address bar and drag it to the Home
button in the menu bar. You'll get a confirmation box.
Click Yes to set the page as your new home page. Don't
want a home page? To make IE 5.x open up with a blank,
right-click your IE shortcut and choose Properties. When
the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab.
Now, click in the Target entry box. Add to the end of
the current command line the phrase
-nohome
and click OK. Internet
Explorer will now open with no page at all. You can
achieve the same end with IE open by clicking on Tools,
then Internet Options, and selecting "use blank" in the
Home Page box.
Make a shortcut to MSIE on your Desktop, if you want one
and MSIE didn't already bestow one upon you. Select
Start, Programs, and right-click Internet Explorer.
Select Send To, Desktop (Create Shortcut). A new icon
appears on the desktop. Click and drag it to the
desktop, or if you prefer (and you're running Win 98),
your Quick Launch toolbar.
Win 98/ME users seem to get a lot of mileage out of the
Quick Launch toolbar, but sometimes the items get
disorganized. Just use the mouse to drag them back to
their proper positions.
More fun with IE 5: multiple start pages. You can create
a shortcut on your Desktop to any number of Web pages;
just click and go. Start by going to the Web page you
want to create the shortcut to, and in the "Address"
toolbar, look for the URL and the little icon to the
left of it. Drag the icon from the browser to the
Desktop. If the page's title is too wordy, slowly
double-click the title to enter editing mode, and rename
it. Hit Enter and you've got yourself an MSIE shortcut.
Do it for each Web page you want to access quickly.
You should not uninstall older versions of MSIE
when you upgrade that program in most cases, but you
should perform a system backup, run ScanDisk and Disk
Defrag, disable all virus scanners, and close all
running apps. For troubleshooting cranky MSIE upgrade
installations, see
support.microsoft.com/support/tshoot/default.asp.
Some of MSIE's own keyboard shortcuts are:
- Ctrl+E, which
opens the Search function in the Explorer bar (IE5
only);
- Ctrl+H, which
opens the History folder;
- Ctrl+I, another
IE5-only shortcut which opens the Favorites in the
Explorer bar;
- Ctrl+W, which
shuts down the browser (or at least shuts the active
window);
- Ctrl+Z to undo an
action, particularly with data entered into forms;
both IE 4 and 5 support multiple undos;
- Ctrl+Tab to
highlight different frames in a site;
- Ctrl+Left Arrow
and Ctrl+Right Arrow to navigate through a long,
complicated URL without holding down an arrow key
forever.
- Ctrl-Click in the
History or Favorites bars to open multiple folders
simultaneously;
- Ctrl+F5 refreshes
a Web page from the source, not from the cache;
- Alt+D, which
selects the text in the Address bar;
- F4 cycles through
recently visited sites;
- In Print Preview
(5.5 only):
- Alt-minus key
(-) to zoom out;
- Alt-plus key
(+) to zoom in;
- Alt-C to
close Print Preview;
You can create your own keyboard shortcuts to your
favorite Web pages for easy access: To assign a keyboard
shortcut to, say, http://www.fubar.com/ while
viewing that site in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4,
first choose Favorites, Add To Favorites, then choose a
folder for the URL (assuming you don't already have the
URL in your Favorites folder). With the URL in
Favorites, choose Favorites, Organize Favorites. Locate
the http://www.fubar.com/ URL and right-click it.
When the pop-up menu appears, choose Properties. If
necessary, click the Internet Shortcut tab and then
click in the Shortcut Key entry box. Now press F (for
Fubar; you can choose a different key, of course) and
you will see that Windows assigns Ctrl+Alt-F as your new
shortcut keys. Click OK to close the dialog box and
apply your assignment. Now, when you get back to the
Favorites window, click Close to close that dialog box.
Navigate to some other site and press Ctrl+Alt+F. IE 4
should return you to the Fubar site.
Other ways to view your Favorites include clicking the
Favorites button on the toolbar, or if you're not in
MSIE, you can access the Favorites menu in either
Windows Explorer or My Computer by choosing View,
Explorer Bar, Favorites. (This last one only works with
MSIE 5.)
You can use your Favorites on another machine simply by
copying the contents of the Favorites folder to floppy
disk or emailing them to yourself, and on the second
machine, copying them into the same location as they
were on the first machine. They'll pop up in the Windows
folder. Easiest way to copy them? Go into Favorites,
Organize Favorites. Press Ctrl+A to select them all,
then right-click one of the selected files and choose
Send To, 3 1/2 Floppy (A). This copies all the Favorites
to the floppy disk for safekeeping. Choose "Link by
E-Mail" to e-mail them to yourself or another e-mail
account, or choose "Page by E-Mail" to send the
Favorites as an HTML page. If you'd rather copy them
from Windows Explorer, they can be found in the
WINDOWS\FAVORITES folder.
The Favorites are in alphabetical order by default. Of
course, if you've moved them around, they may not be in
order. You can order them as you wish if you choose
Favorites to open the menu, then grab the folders (or
URLs) with the mouse and move them to a new spot. If
you're really adventurous, you can edit the Registry to
force an alphabetized Favorites menu. Remember to
exercise caution when modifying the Registry. To
proceed, click Start, Run, type "regedit," and press
Enter. Now navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \
Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \
MenuOrder \ Favorites \ Menu. In the RegEdit right pane,
you'll see a key named Order. Right-click this key and
choose Delete. Click Yes to confirm the deletion, then
choose Registry, Exit to close RegEdit. After you
restart the computer, you'll find that your Favorites
are all in order again, just the way you like them.
MSIE supports "back browsing" (going back through pages
already visited) by using the downward arrow next to the
Back button. (This is the case with the Forward button
as well, of course.) However, another and possibly more
complete listing of the sites you've surfed in your
latest session can be accessed by pressing Alt-V, then O
(or select View, Go To); a list of every site you've
visited appears.
MSIE supports right-click functions much more so than
other browsers. Right-clicking a link gives you a menu
of options such as opening the link in a new window or
adding the link to your Favorites menu. (You can also
open this menu by pressing Shift+F10.)
Change MSIE's display size by selecting View, Fonts, and
choose a size from the 5 selections. If you have a
scroll mouse, you can hold down the Ctrl key and use the
wheel to scroll through the options. To change the font
itself, go through View, Internet Options, click the
"Fonts" button, and look about halfway down to see the
font choices. Choose which one suits you. Want to change
the font display for all the Web pages you view? Go
through the Accessibility tab and check all the boxes
that have MSIE ignore font sizes and styles. This may
make some pages display oddly, but you can't have
everything. Your choices include "Ignore colors
specified on web pages," "Ignore font styles specified
on web pages," and "Ignore font sizes specified on web
pages."
AutoSearch the Web with MSIE 5 by typing a question
mark, the word "Go," or the word "Find," and then the
keywords of your search into the address bar. Actually,
if you're searching for more than one word, you don't
need to add anything.
MSIE's search capabilities are more varied than first
indicated. Choose your default search engine by clicking
on the Search button in the standard toolbar, and in the
left-hand pane, click on "Choose a search engine."
Select from "List of all search providers." Win 95 users
get a drop-down list, Win 98/ME users get a full list
launched in the main browser window.
If MSIE's search capability and/or home page is
defaulting to a search engine called Sureseeker without
your consent, you've got a problem. Sureseeker may well
be a legitimate search site (though I doubt it), but a
virus called either JS.Seeker Trojan or
HTA.RunMe is hijacking your browser and forcing it
to return to the site. The solution to this is
threefold. First, make sure you're running an updated
virus scanner, and scrub your hard drive. Secondly,
update your browser -- current versions of MSIE have
patched the security hole that this virus takes
advantage of. Third, stay the hell away from
Sureseeker's Web site, since your return will trigger
another attack.
Interested in offline browsing? Simple if you have MSIE
5x; just go online, surf to the site you want to browse
offline, pull down the Favorites menu and select "Add to
Favorites." Then make sure the "Make Available Offline"
check box is checked and click out. You'll have to
decide when and how much of the site's pages you want to
download by going through Customize and letting the
Offline Browsing Wizard walk you through the process.
There's another way of doing this in MSIE 5; go into
Favorites, select "Organize Favorites," and make sure
the "Make available offline" box is checked. Use the
Properties tab to tell MSIE when to download the site
and how much of it you want downloaded. Now, to use
these downloaded pages, go through File and choose "Work
Offline." The pages that are available for offline
perusal are marked with a small red gleam. Obviously,
links that point to other sites' pages won't work, but
you can work with the pages you did download much more
quickly and effortlessly. (MSIE 5 owners, you can access
these same pages later without going back online, by
going through either your History or your Favorites list
that are displayed in black. Black means that the pages
are stored in your cache. Grayed-out page titles aren't
in storage, and need to be revisited.) All of this used
to be known as "Subscriptions," if you remember back
that far.
MSIE crashing on you? Occasional crashes are usually
caused by wonky Web site code or just plain overload,
but if it happens too frequently, you can do some
finetuning to make MSIE fly right. Most crashes are
labeled "Invalid Page Errors;" other specific errors can
best be troubleshot on Microsoft's site at
www.microsoft.com/support. Sometimes just clearing
the cache and history files is enough to solve the
problem. Often Java or ActiveX controls make MSIE go
belly-up; disable these features one by one and see if
the page then loads properly. From MSIE's Tools menu,
choose Internet Options, choose the Security tab, then
the Internet icon. Click "Custom Level." Click beside
Disable in these categories: "Download Signed ActiveX
Controls," "Run ActiveX Controls and Plugins," "Active
Scripting," and "Scripting of Java Applets." Under Java,
select "Disable Java."
A frequent cause of crashes is due to corrupt ActiveX
files, as above. You can locate damaged ActiveX controls
by going into Settings, View Objects, and changing the
View to "Details." Poke around in that listing for
problem controls.
Sometimes an MSIE crash takes the desktop with it.
Yeeesh! This happens in both Win 98 and ME, and is
caused by the tight integration of the browser with the
OS. You could just uninstall MSIE and go with Netscape
or Opera instead; a less drastic solution is to go into
View, Internet Options, Advanced, and in the Browsing
submenu, choose Browse in a New Process. This
will force MSIE to run in its own, separate portion of
RAM. It costs you some system resources, but prevents
browser crashes from cascading into other apps.
MSIE 5's AutoDisconnect feature annoys some and pleases
others. Basically, it asks if you want to disconnect
from your ISP connection when you close MSIE. To access
this feature, go through Control Panel/Internet Options,
or go through MSIE's Tools menu. Click the Connections
tab and choose your dial-up connection. Click the
Settings button, then click the Advanced button. Check,
or uncheck, the box titled "Disconnect when connection
may no longer be needed," as you prefer -- checking the
box has MSIE query you about disconnecting from your
dial-up connection, and unchecking it makes MSIE shut
up.
Use MSIE 4 and above as a bare-bones FTP client. Just
type the FTP address into the Address Bar. You won't be
able to drag a file's icon from the FTP site, so
double-click it and you'll be given a "Save to Disk"
option. If the site requires a password, you may see an
error message. That's OK. Just choose File, Login As.
The Login As dialog box appears. Type your user name and
password, then click OK. You can then access files and
folders on the FTP server. Note: IE 5.x does allow
drag&drop functionality.
When you install MSIE 5 over Win 9x, a new folder called
Windows Update Setup Files installs itself. This folder
sucks up almost 20MB of space. While you should keep it
for a while to ensure that MSIE 5 is behaving properly,
once you've decided MSIE is OK, you can delete the
folder and all the files inside.
Being a Microsoft product, MSIE 5 is prone to develop
strange twitches and misbehaviors after it's been on
your disk a while. IE 5 is supposed to provided an
Internet Explorer Repair Tool that automatically locates
and downloads any missing required files or update
patches; surf to support.microsoft.com and peruse
document Q194177.
If you're running IE 4, you need Service Pack 2. Get it
from www.microsoft.com/ie or from
windowsupdate.microsoft.com. Two minor security
browser patches made it too late for SP2, and can be had
from
www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms99-012.asp.
If you indeed are running IE 4x, several more bug and
security patches are available. Go through Help/Product
Updates on the toolbar to download the currently
available patches, or contact Microsoft or one of the
Win9x software pages listed below. You can also get
updates, patches, etc. by choosing Microsoft from the
Web/Free Stuff link on the IE 4 Help menu. Find the link
that says "Click here to go to the 4.0 Add-Ons page" and
click it, then click on the Internet Explorer 4.0
Components link. Finally, let it scan your hard drive;
it will tell you what you currently have and what you
can download to upgrade IE.
If, for some reason, you're a Win 98/ME user who wants
to run both MSIE 4 and MSIE 5 on the same drive, you can
do it; in fact, these are the only two versions of MSIE
that can coexist. While you're installing MSIE 5, choose
Custom Installation, click the Advanced tab, and check
the option that lets you keep your old MSIE 4 version.
There are still some compatibility issues, especially
with version 5.5, so one workaround is to use a
shareware program called Magic Folders, from
www.touchzones.com. This program will let you "hide"
certain folders on your drive, so if you hide the MSIE 4
folder while you install 5.5, the later version won't
try to cannibalize the older version, as usually
happens.
Make sure you're running version 3.02 or later, at least
-- earlier versions have major security flaws, and
besides, the older ones are obsolete. To update, go to
Microsoft's IE Web site at www.microsoft.com/ie/
(Version 3.x is pretty obsolete, too, but it has its
diehards.).
Back up your Favorites lists by opening Windows
Explorer, finding the Favorites folder in the Windows
folder, right-clicking it, choosing Copy, and pasting it
into a floppy or into another folder.
You can also import Netscape's Bookmarks into your
Favorites listing relatively easily, and set MSIE to
copy newly bookmarked sites from Netscape automatically
into its Favorites listing. In 3x and 4x, choose
File/Open, choose Browse, set "Files of type" to All
Files, and use the "Look In" drop-down box to navigate
to BOOKMARK.HTM under C:\PROGRAM FILES\NETSCAPE\USERS\yourname
. When you find it, double-click the file to load it
into the Open dialog box. Click OK again, and MSIE will
display Navigator's Bookmarks as active links. On the
menu, click Favorites/Add to Favorites, name the
shortcut "Navigator Bookmarks," and click OK. Now you
can click Navigator Bookmarks just as you would MSIE
Favorites. MSIE 5 makes this a lot easier: just go
through File, Import and Export, and follow the wizard.
Copy hyperlinks directly from the Web page into a
document or other file by right-clicking the link and
choosing Copy Shortcut. Copy URLs from the address
window by clicking once in the address window to select
the URL, right-clicking the URL, and choosing Copy.
Use the Tab key to jump from one link to the next on a
Web page. Go backwards with Shift+Tab. At a highlighted
link, press Enter to open it, or press Shift+F10 to open
the right-click context menu.
Sometimes when you're entering data into a Web form and
you hit Backspace to correct misentries, MSIE 5 backs up
to the previous Web page instead of just backing the
cursor through the data field. This is an annoyance that
is dealt with in a long and prolix manner in Microsoft's
Knowledge Base (support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q235/2/39.asp
if you're interested), but the only correction is to
upgrade to MSIE 5.01.
Press Ctrl+L or Ctrl+O to launch the Open dialog box.
Just type the address and press the Enter key to jump to
a site.
Want more than one pane open? Hold the Shift key down
while clicking on the link to open the new page into a
new browser pane. Slightly faster than the usual
right-clicking of a link and choosing "Open in New
Window."
Open the Address Bar in MSIE 4x by pressing F4.
Want to clear the list of recently browsed sites in the
Address drop-down menu? Right-click on an empty area of
the Taskbar and choose "Start Menu Properties," then
click the "Clear" button. This not only clears the
Address menu but the Documents list as well.
MSIE will let you view multimedia files, such as .AVI, .MOV,
.MPG, .WAV, or .AU, just by clicking the file icon, with
a little tweaking. In Windows Explorer, go into the
\Windows\Web folder. Choose View, and then choose
"Customize this folder." When that opens, make sure the
"Create or edit an HTML file" box is clicked, click Next
twice. The file should open in Notepad. Choose Search
and then Find. Type WANTMEDIA and click Find Next. The
search should locate a line that begins "var wantMedia=false"
(but with extra spaces for formatting). Change the word
"false" with the word "true." Select File, Save and then
Exit. Back in the "Customize this folder" box, click
Finish. Close and reopen any Explorer windows. After
doing all this, test-drive your tweak by choosing one of
the file types listed above, and then clicking the play
button that appears in the preview area.
Sometimes multimedia is too much, as when unwanted
sounds come thundering out of your speakers during a 3
a.m. surf session. Go through Tools, Internet Options,
Advanced, and scroll down to the Multimedia section.
Uncheck the box that says "Play Sounds." Click OK and
you're rigged for silent running.
MSIE 5 and 5.01 lack a print preview function, making it
difficult to tell how much paper you're going to burn by
printing out a Web page. (Navigator users, feel free to
stick out your tongues and go "nyaah nyaah," you have an
excellent print preview facility incorporated in your
browser; conversely, MSIE 5.5 has a perfectly usable
print preview function.) There is a workaround for MSIE
users using the built-in Front Page HTML editor. Choose
File and then choose "Edit with Microsoft Front Page
Editor." When the page finishes loading into Front Page
2000 (included with Office 2000) or Front Page Express
(included with MSIE 5), choose File and then Print
Preview. Click Next Page until you see the portion of
the Web page you want to print. Click Zoom to move in
closer, and Two Page to view two pages at once. When
you've decided on which page number(s) to print, either
click Print or return to IE 5 and choose File, Print.
Then enter the desired page numbers in the "from" and
"to" boxes under "Print range," and click OK. This isn't
a perfect solution: clicking on a link that opens up a
conventional graphic or text file won't allow the "Edit
with Front Page" command to appear in the File menu. In
this case, save the graphic or text file to your PC's
hard drive using the Save Target As command,
shift-right-click the file's icon, choose Open With,
select WordPad to open the program, uncheck the box that
says "Always open this file type with this program," and
click Open. In WordPad, choose Print Preview and follow
the same routine as you would for printing pages in
Front Page. Delete the saved file when you're done.
Caveat: Front Page Express isn't as full-featured as
Front Page 2000, and may do a wonky job of displaying a
Web page, particularly one using frames. But even
FPExpress can help you take a stab at what you want to
print.
Speaking of MSIE 5.5's print preview function, here's
how it works: open it through the File menu and control
it with the toolbar at the top of the display. You can
change the margins, the orientation of the page
(Portrait or Landscape), and the header and footer info
with simple commands. Unfortunately, some other
functions require the use of coding: for example, to
insert the Web address in the header or footer, you must
use the code "&u" (sans quotes). Click the ? button in
the Page Setup dialog box and click inside the Header or
Footer fields to see a list of codes you can use. Want
to add it to your Web toolbar? Right-click the toolbar
and choose Customize. Highlight Print Preview on the
left side of the Customize Toolbar window. On the right
side of the window, highlight the location on the
toolbar where you want the new button to appear. The
Print Preview button will appear to the left of the
highlighted button on the toolbar. Click Add and then
Close; you now have a new Print Preview button on your
toolbar.
You can force MSIE to print the time and date when you
print out Web content. Depending on whether you want the
data at the top or bottom of the sheets, go into either
the Header or Footer box and type &T &D in the
appropriate text box. You might want to leave a few
spaces between the codes to separate the time and date
on the printed page. You can also add personal notes in
the entry field in the header and footer.
Printing Web pages has always been problematic, with
everything from 20 pages of blank paper spitting out of
the printer to half-a-dozen pages printed in light grey
to...you name it. Anyway, MSIE 5 allows you to lose the
background colors and images that screw up the text
printing, go through Tools, Internet Options and click
Advanced. Remove the check beside "Print background
colors and images." Click OK. To set other options, go
through Page Setup and use the options under Header and
Footer to print URLs, Web page titles, the date, the
time, and the number of pages, as you like.
Printing framed pages is another headache. To make
things somewhat easier, make sure you click somewhere in
the frame that you want to print (to select it), then
open the Print dialog box with Ctrl+P. You'll be
presented with three choices: "As Laid Out On Screen"
(to print all frames as they appear), "Only The Selected
Frames" (usually selected by default), and "All Frames
Individually" (for printing each frame as a separate
page).
Users of FrontPage Express might appreciate the tutorial
from the University of Sioux Falls: www.thecoo.edu/~iverson/fpetutorial/
frontpage_express_tutorial.htm.
If you like having both Netscape and MSIE on your
computer, here's how to make MSIE the default browser:
in either 3x or 4x versions, select View (or Tools),
Internet Options, click the Program tab, check the box
which says "Internet Explorer Should Check to See
Whether It is the Default Browser," and then click OK.
The next time you open IE, it will ask if you want it to
be the default browser. Tell it OK.
IE's Content Advisor is used primarily for protecting
children from accessing smut sites, but can be used for
other work-related tasks as well. To access it, open
Internet Explorer. Click Tools, Internet Options. Click
the Content tab and the Enable button. Select the
General tab in the Content Adviser box, and click Create
Password. Enter the same password in the Confirm
Password box. Enter a hint if you like, and OK out. Now
you can set up the Web site limits. Once again, select
Tools, Internet Options and the Content tab. Click
Settings. Enter your password and click OK. Click the
Approved Sites tab. In the "Allow this Web site" box,
enter each site that will be permitted. Click Always for
each site. When finished, click OK. If your kids or
employees try to access a site that is not on the list,
they will be prompted to enter the Content Advisor
Supervisor's password. The password isn't that hard to
crack for someone knowledgeable, so know your audience
before relying on Content Advisor to keep folks surfing
clean. Kim Komando has written a nice article for
Microsoft's BCentral on the whole magilla at
www.bcentral.com/articles/komando/116.asp.
Many people find Content Advisor annoying. It is all too
easily activated with a few stray keystrokes and almost
impossible to disable. If you activated it without a
password, or you forgot your password, or it
mysteriously activated itself, you'll need to edit the
Registry to take it off sentry duty. Here's how. Go
through Regedit and navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \
CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Ratings and click the Key
entry in the right window. Press Delete. Save your work,
exit the Registry, and restart your PC. Now, right-click
the Internet Explorer icon on your desktop, select
Properties, click the Content tab, and choose "Disable
Ratings." Don't enter anything when asked for a
password, just click OK. (Poking in the Registry is a
bit unnerving; the article at www.techrepublic.com/article_guest.jhtml?
id=r00320020404jdt01.htm&fromtm=e103-3 provides a
nice visual aid.)
Here's how to close Content Advisor if passwords aren't
the issue. First, close Internet Explorer. Now, from the
Desktop, click on Start, Find, Files or Folders. Ensure
that the box marked Look In shows the C: drive and not
another drive letter or folder. In the Named box, type
RATINGS.POL and click "Find Now." If you find this file,
delete it and close this window. If you do not find this
file, do the following: Open the Control Panel and
double click on the Internet icon. Click the Content
tab. Click on Disable ratings. If ratings are already
disabled, click on the settings button, and then just
put a setting in and hit OK. This will create a new
RATINGS.POL file, so it should stop giving you the error
about invalid configuration. Type the Supervisor
Password, and then click OK. More information on how to
do this can be found at support.microsoft.com/support/kb/
articles/Q242/0/37.asp. Don't forget, you'll need to
either have or create the Supervisor password.
However, you can activate the Content function to
monitor and restrict who is able to view what on MSIE.
Go through View (or Tools), Internet Options, and click
the Content tab, and click Enable under Content Advisor.
MSIE will prompt you to create a supervisor password and
define sensitivity settings for offensive content types.
Be very, very sure to jot down that supervisor's
password somewhere where you can find it; if you lose
it, you're stuck with those particular Content settings.
Questions about the way MSIE handles passwords?
Sometimes the password check box is unavailable, which
often indicates you aren't logged on correctly and
probably can't save the password you desire. Visit
support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q137/3/61.asp
for more info on this documented glitch.
When you enter a user name and password for a particular
Web site, I IE may ask if you want it to remember the
password. Click on Yes and it will automatically fill in
the password next time you enter that user name. But if
you check Don't offer to remember any more passwords,
then whether you click on Yes or No, you won't be
prompted again. To recover this feature, launch Internet
Options from IE's Tools menu, select the Content tab,
click on the AutoComplete button, and check "Prompt me"
to save passwords. To delete an individual saved
password entry, go to the log-on box on the Web page in
question and double-click. Your saved AutoComplete
entries will drop down. Use the arrow keys to scroll to
the one you want to delete, and press the Del key.
When you request a page that can't be found on a Web
server, Internet Explorer shows its own error message.
Internet Explorer 5 refers to this error message as a
"friendly HTTP error." You can turn off this message and
see the page the Web site's designer intends you to see
when something goes amiss by following these steps:
Choose Tools, Internet Options, and click the Advanced
tab to bring it forward. Scroll down to the selection
"Show Friendly Errors" and uncheck it. Click OK to save
your changes.
MSIE 4x has a few neat tricks worth recounting. You can
connect better to your ISP by going through View,
Internet Options, Connection, clicking on the Settings
button, and upping the number of times IE will attempt
to contact your ISP, and the amount of idle time before
you're disconnected. You can enter just the domain name
in the address box (i.e. Microsoft and IE will
automatically wrap http://www ... com around it.
4x's AutoComplete feature works like its cousin in
Netscape; if you've previously visited a Web site, you
can begin typing its URL and IE will finish it for you.
(You can enable/disable this by going through View,
Internet Options, Advanced, under Browsing.) If you're
not sure whether your domain ends in .com, .org,
or .edu,, type the URL without any extension and
IE will try each one. IE helps you navigate long and
tortuous URLs with Ctrl+Left Arrow and Ctrl+Right Arrow;
the cursor will move through the various sections of the
URL separated by periods and slashes. IE can perform
automatic Web searches for you; simply enter a phrase
(not a single word) into the address box and press
Enter. IE runs the phrase through a search engine on
Microsoft's Web site. Update MSIE 4x by selecting Help,
Microsoft on the Web, Free Stuff menu. Once you're
connected to Microsoft's site, click on your particular
OS and then click Add-ons. Let the site scan your hard
drive; it will tell you which components you have and
give you the option to add upgrades and patches. IE 4x
gives you a default search engine (Microsoft's) when you
select Start, Find, On the Internet. Change this over by
going into the Registry, hunting down the key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Internet \
Explorer \ Main, double-clicking on SearchPage, and in
the Value Data box, entering the URL of the search
engine you prefer. Use Find to hunt down the file
IE4.TXT (you may find more than one -- use the newest
one). Check this out. Found a neat graphic you'd like to
use as wallpaper for the Desktop? Right-click the image
and choose Set As Wallpaper.
Occasionally network administrators, business execs, or
parents have trouble with their kids or employees using,
er, inappropriate pictures for their wallpaper. If this
is your situation, block wallpaper changes through MSIE
by going into the Background tab of the Display
Properties section, and either choose an acceptable
(i.e. not Claudia Schiffer or Hannibal the Cannibal)
image or None. Locate the file named INTERNET EXPLORER
WALLPAPER.BMP (usually located in the
C:\WINDOWS\APPLICATION DATA\MICROSOFT\INTERNET EXPLORER
folder). Delete the file and create another folder in
its place with exactly the same name. Click OK. Now when
a user tries to set a captured image from the Internet
as wallpaper, they get an "Access denied" message
instead of a juicy image on their screen.
IE's AutoComplete feature can get pretty stuffed with
URLs, and these take up hard drive space. Clean out your
AutoComplete cache by editing the Registry: go into
RegEdit, and browse to HKEY_USERS \ Default \ Software \
Microsoft \ InternetExplorer \ TypedURLs -- once there,
delete any unwanted URLs.
While you're thinking about AutoComplete and the
Registry, here's another trick to extend AutoComplete's
functionality. By default, you can enter incomplete URLs
ending in .COM, .ORG, and .EDU, but here's
how to add the extensions .GOV and .NET to
AutoComplete's listings. Go into the Registry through
RegEdit. Drill down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \
Microsoft \ Internet Explorer \ Main \ UrlTemplate and
look for the six strings with these values: 1 "www.%s.com"
2 "www.%s.edu" 3 "www.%s.org" 4 "%s.com" 5 "%s.edu" 6 "%s.org"
. Select Edit, New, String Value and add the following
values and data: 7 "www.%s.net" 8 "www.%s.gov" 9 "%s.net"
10 "%s.gov" .
IE will remember which sites you've visited for a good
while in its History folder. To lessen its memory, and
save hard drive space, go through View (or Tools),
Options and click the Navigation tab. Click Clear
History; it does just that. Set the number of days to
keep a site in History while you're here. I keep mine
low, at 1 or 2 days max. For some reason, occasionally
the History folder doesn't clear even when told to do
so. Force it to clear through DOS. Reboot the PC in DOS
mode, go into the Windows folder by entering the command
C:\WINDOWS, then type the command DELTREE HISTORY. It
will ask you to confirm this command; do so by entering
Y and pressing Enter. That should clear things out.
On the other hand, the History folder is handy for
keeping Internet sites you've visited recently at your
fingertips. Right-click and drag the History folder from
the Windows folder, drop it on your desktop, and choose
"Create Shortcut(s) Here" from the menu. To go to a
recently visited Web site, double-click the shortcut
icon, skim the list, and double-click your selection.
Sometimes the History display only displays part of an
Internet address; hold your cursor over the item to see
a Tool Tip appear with all the information you need.
You can manage IE 5's history data more completely than
just the usual "gather and delete" routine. Click the
History toolbar button, and from there organize, edit,
and purge as you like.
IE 5 has a neat little function called Web Accessories
Highlight that lets you emphasize points of interest in
the pages you surf; it isn't as easy to share these
pages with fellow surfers, but it can be done. To get
the Highlight function, install Web Accessories for IE 5
-- go to www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ebaccess/ie5tools.asp
to download the free toolkit. The context menu that
accompanies a right-click on a selected area includes a
Highlight command which highlights selected areas in
yellow. This isn't normally saved, but to do so, you
need to modify the Highlight menu item's script. Open
Notepad, and in that program open the script found in
C:\WINDOWS\WEB\HIGHLIGHT.HTM. First, back up the script,
then find the line of script that reads:
rng.ExecCommand
Just above this line,
insert these two lines:
rng.text = "{{" + str + }}"
var rng = sel.createRange():
Save
and close the file. Now your highlighted text will be
enclosed within curly brackets like these: { } and
retained when you copy the page and paste it into, say,
an HTML-format e-mail message. It isn't as visually
appealing as the yellow highlight, but we do what we
can.
IE 5 will save entire Web pages, including graphics, to
your hard drive by simply clicking on File, Save As, and
choosing Web Page, Complete from the "Save As Type"
drop-down menu.
You can save a particular graphic by using the same Save
As option. Want to save it as a different file type?
Your choices are limited, but check the "Save as Type"
box before saving. You usually have the choice of the
original file type and .BMP. Useful for saving pictures
to use as wallpaper, since .GIF and .JPG files won't
easily display as wallpaper on the average system.
In the same area as above, reset your home page if you
like.
Java is slow sometimes; speed things up by turning on
the JIT compiler. Go to View (or Tools), Options and
select Advanced. Check the box for Enable JIT Compiler.
Sometimes MSIE's Java Virtual Machine becomes damaged,
and you lose Java capability as a result. The easy fix
is to go to www.microsoft.com/java, download, and
install the JVM. It's a big download, but if your Java
is broken, this is the fix.
Where the heck did I come from? Hold the mouse arrow
over the Forward or Back buttons and a pop-up tool tip
tells you which site the button points to.
14.4 modem users (yes, there are some left), speed up
things by disabling multimedia downloads. View (or
Tools), Options and General takes you to a dialog box;
deselect the options labeled "Show Pictures," "Play
Sounds," and "Play Videos." If you want to see a
particular graphic anyway, just click on the broken-GIF
marker indicating its place on its Web page.
Words first, pics later: While a graphics-heavy site is
loading, use the arrow key to scroll down the page. This
forces the text to load first so you can read the page
while the pictures are loading. You can also hit the
spacebar to stop graphics from loading, allowing the
text to come through first.
Here's a sneaky way to force IE to load graphics faster.
The way IE usually does business is to make one
connection to a site to download the HTML and a second
connection to download the graphics (this is why the
above tip works). You can increase the number of
connections to more efficiently use your bandwidth and
speed your page loading. Go into the Registry through
Regedit, navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \
Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ InternetSettings
key. Select "Internet Settings" on the left and find an
icon that's labeled "MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server." Find
another icon labeled "MaxConnectionsPerServer." If you
don't see them, right-click in the right pane and choose
New, DWORD Value, and type MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server
and press Enter. Right-click a second time and create a
DWORD value named MaxConnectionsPerServer and press
Enter. Now double-click MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server. The
default value is 4, but you want to increase it to, say,
8. (Some Web sites recommend settings as high as 20, so
feel free to try different settings.) Now click OK,
double-click MaxConnectionsPerServer, and change the
Value data to 4 (the default is 2, but some folks go as
high as 10). Click OK and exit the Registry.
Force animated graphics to quit jumping around: Under
Tools, Internet Options, Advanced, scroll down to the
Multimedia section, un-check the Play Animations option
and click OK. From now on, you'll see only the first
frame of each animated GIF that loads.
Speaking of scrolling, you can use the scroll wheel on a
wheel mouse to scroll up and down a Web page in MSIE.
More options: right-click anywhere in your browser's
vertical scroll bar area, and up pop a few useful
options: Scroll Here, Top, Bottom, Page Up, Page Down,
Scroll Up, and Scroll Down.
The Outbox on Internet Mail is often corrupted. Fix this
by finding the two files OUTBOX.MBX and OUTBOX.IDF.
Delete both files. The next time you start Internet
Mail, IE will construct a new Outbox. Outlook users,
this won't apply to you.
By the way, Outlook (or the older Internet Mail) isn't
the only e-mail client usable with MSIE. If you'd rather
use another e-mail client, configure MSIE to use the new
client by selecting Tools, Internet Options. Click the
Programs tab to bring it forward. Under the Email area,
click the downward-pointing arrow and select your e-mail
client. Click the OK button to save your changes. Now,
when you click a link that says something like "Click
Here To Send Email," the new email client appears.
Right-click on a page and you'll get a box offering to
add it to your Favorites list. Right-click on a link and
you can add it to your Favorites or print the site
without going to it. Right-click on a graphic and you'll
be give the option of saving it to a file.
Take your Favorites folder with you to another computer:
open C:\WINDOWS\FAVORITES under Explorer, select all the
folders and icons by choosing Edit/Select All, then drag
and drop them onto a floppy disk. On the second PC,
repeat the process.
Add locally stored files and folders to your Favorites
file: right-click My Computer, select Explore, click the
Favorites button on the toolbar (the one that looks like
a folder with an asterisk), navigate through your system
to the files or folders you want to add, right-drag them
to the Favorites pane at the left, and select "Create
Shortcut(s) Here." Even easier in IE 5 -- just select
the file or folder you want to add to Favorites, and
click the Add button at the top of the Favorites pane.
Want to subscribe to a site? It's not too
difficult. To subscribe to, say, Fubar.com (is there
really a "fubar.com" page?), choose Favorites, and then
locate the Fubar URL. Right-click the URL and choose
"Subscribe." When the "Subscribe Favorite" dialog box
opens, you can select either "Only tell me when this
page is updated," or "Notify me of updates and download
the page for offline viewing." If you click Customize,
IE 4 opens the Subscription Wizard. You can make your
selections and click Next. You can also elect to have
the selected site send you an e-mail message when there
are updates.
MSIE's best hotkeys are the Home and End keys, taking
you to the top or the bottom of a Web page,
respectively.
MSIEX30.ZIP is a file which, once installed, turns MSIE
into a "stealth browser;" in other words, you can surf
the Net without any Websites finding out what kind of
browser or computer you're using. Check this out, along
with a few other odd-but-fun programs, at
www.er.uqam.ca/merlin/fg591543/ and look under the
"Discontinued" section.
Users of MSIE's old Internet Mail and News may find that
their hard drive space is inexplicably vanishing; this
is due to the fact that when you delete e-mail messages
from the Deleted Items folder, they don't actually
delete, they just hide from you. Purge them forever by
compacting MSIE's Internet Mail folder: choose
File/Folders, then choose "Compact all folders."
Occasionally, you'll try to delete cookies from the
\WINDOWS\COOKIES folder, either from Windows or the DOS
prompt, and you get the message "Access Denied."
Assuming MSIE isn't running and the files aren't marked
System, Read-Only, or Hidden (which they should not be),
then MSIE locked them away from you the last time it
ran. Delete these little critters by restarting your
computer, pressing F8 at the "Starting Windows" message,
and selecting the Command Prompt Only option. At C: type
CD \WINDOWS\COOKIES and then type DEL *.* If this
doesn't work, use ATTRIB to force your will upon your
recalcitrant computer: type ATTRIB -R -S -H *.* and
press Enter, then try DEL *.* If this still doesn't
work, you have a problem that only ScanDisk or Norton
Disk Doctor can solve.
ActiveX controls are little neato, Java-like
applications that run on your PC as they dress up
various Web pages. While they spice up a Web site, they
also can access your hard drive and, in theory anyway,
wreak havoc upon it. Although no reports of dangerous
ActiveX controls affecting Internet users have surfaced
as yet, the underlying architecture has gaping holes
just waiting for some overskilled, under socialized
yahoo to take advantage of them. To protect yourself,
set IE to its Medium Security Level at the very least,
which lets you choose whether or not to allow ActiveX
controls to run on your system that have not been
digitally certified. The default is High Security, which
requires that all ActiveX controls be certified. To
adjust your security system in IE, choose View, Options,
click the Security tab, and click on Safety Level. Go
back to the Security tab and click the Publishers
button. Remove the entries for any publishers from the
list. This makes IE require an OK from you before
downloading and running anyone's ActiveX controls. If
you want to make your browser, and your machine, even
more secure, you can shut down IE's ability to download
ActiveX applications altogether: on the Security tab,
uncheck the box marked "Allow Downloading of Active
Content." (Trustworthy ActiveX controls already loaded
will continue to run.) To entirely disable ActiveX
controls and script-based applications, remove the
checks from the boxes labeled "Enable ActiveX Controls
and Plug-Ins," and "Run ActiveX Scripts." To totally
immunize yourself from any threat, uncheck the "Enable
Java Programs" box. Although Java applets pose less of a
danger to your system because they do not allow the same
level of access, Java programmers have found security
holes that allow some infiltration. The only way to be
absolutely safe is to disable both Java and ActiveX, but
the trade-off is that you lose the stunning graphics and
neato effects. You decide what's enough and what's too
much. MSIE tends to accumulate ActiveX/OCX controls and
components like fleas; find out the details about your
system by downloading the free utility Active
XCavator from content.techweb.com/winmag/software/wmfiles.htm#activex.
Browser crashes render Windows unstable quickly. IE 4x
gives you an option besides the typical cool-boot,
restart, or Ctrl+Alt+Del options. Under View/Internet
Options/Advanced, check Browse in a New Process. This
makes IE launch a separate version of the browser
instead of going off the one already open that is also
providing your Windows shell.
Some people like the Full Screen (kiosk) option,
accessible by pressing F11. If you're one of these, you
can easily access your Address Bar while in Full Screen
mode simply by right-clicking the toolbar and choosing
Address Bar. You can even hide that toolbar by clicking
an empty area of it and choosing AutoHide. To see it
again, just point to the top of the screen with the
mouse. Remember: MSIE opens in the same mode as it's
closed in, so if you close down in Full Screen mode,
that's what you get when you reopen it later.
Want MSIE to open in Full Screen mode? The easiest way
is to create a shortcut that opens MSIE in full screen.
Right-click a blank area of your Desktop and choose New,
Shortcut. Now type the following in the field:
"C:\PROGRAM FILES\INTERNET EXPLORER\IEXPLORE.EXE" -K
Name the shortcut
something like "MSIE Full Screen" and click Finish.
Voila.
Sometimes MSIE opens new pages in smaller windows than
you would like. If this annoys you enough to take
action, you can force it to behave with a simple
Registry tweak. Using Regedit, drill down to the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Internet
Explorer \ Main key. In the right-hand pane, locate and
delete the value Window_Placement. It's fine to delete
it; it will be re-created if needed. There's another way
to control the size of secondary browser windows (i.e.
the ones you get when you right-click a link and choose
"Open in New Window"). Open one, size it to your
preference, and hold down Shift while clicking the
window's Close button.
You can make IE open in whatever size or position you
wish by going through Tools, Internet Options and
entering the following line as the "Address" in the
Homepage panel: javascript:
resizeTo(800,600):moveTo(0,0): document.location.href='http://yourhomepage.com'
. Change the size and values to whatever you prefer, and
change yourhomepage to your actual home page. You can do
the same thing with pages opened from your Favorites
menu. Open the Favorites menu, right-click the item, and
choose Properties. In the URL field, enter the
JavaScript command above, replace the URL with the
item's original URL, and click on OK. IE will grouse
that "the protocol 'javascript' does not have a
registered program. Do you want to keep this target
anyway?" Click Yes. Now this favorite page will open in
the size and position that you prefer.
Don't interrupted file transfers tick you off? While
Netscape Navigator will let you pick up where you left
off, MSIE won't do it. If it's worth $25 to you, pony up
for a utility called Jackhammer (www.sausagetools.com/products/index.html)
that gives you this capability. Note: Jackhammer no
longer appears on the revamped Sausage site. You may
need to look for this on the shareware sites. Plenty of
other download managers out there will also perform this
function.
If you have IE 4x, you can get a version of PowerToys
for your browser for free. It allows simultaneous
viewing of multiple sites, QuickSearch's power searching
capabilities, and lots of other features. You can try
downloading it from Microsoft at www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/powertoys/default.htm,
but since it's a bummer downloading anything from
Microsoft, try getting it from Windows Magazine's
FreeWin 98 software site at content.techweb.com/winmag/win98/software.htm
-- I'd bet it's available at plenty of other freeware
providers as well. (I don't know whether this PowerToys
works with the truncated IE 4 provided with AOL 4.0 or
not.) IE Powertoys provides lots of ways to control your
dealings with Web graphics, puts a bit of speed into
your Web searches, etc.
NeoPlanet has released a fun, free "shell" for MSIE that
makes the whole experience of surfing the Web a bit less
techie and more fun. Try it out from
www.neoplanet.com.
You've noticed that all kind of different outfits sport
customized versions of MSIE. Must not be too hard,
right? Well, it really isn't. You can customize your
copy of MSIE for yourself or for your office by using
the Internet Explorer Administration Kit, a free
download from www.microsoft.com/windows/ieak/en/corp/.
Fill out the registration forms, copy the customization
code Microsoft sends you, download the IEAK software,
enter the code when prompted, and get ready to
customize. When you're customizing the toolbar graphic,
be sure to use a graphic that matches the toolbar in
size, and make sure it's light enough that dark text is
readable against it. The IEAK also provides for common
security settings, a common Favorites list, and common
home pages -- good news for business owners who want
everyone's browser to be configured identically.
Add some fun and functionality to MSIE 5 by visiting
www.tweakie.com and downloading TweakIE, a
set of plugins that, among other things, allows you to
view the files in your cache (by type), completely clear
out your page history even when MSIE 5 can't seem to,
and change the text in the title bar -- for instance,
when you download a cobranded version and want to change
the name on your title bar. Try it for free, keep it for
$15.
Find older versions of MSIE at helpdesk.uvic.ca/how-to/support/win95/msiexpl.html,
all the way back to MSIE 2. The site does not carry the
3.x versions due to the nasty security holes.
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