Internet Explorer 5.0 problems

Tea

Storage? I am Storage!
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My Internet Explorer has gone the way of all things. When I visit Storage Forum it loads most of the page, then appears to freeze. Eventually I have to close it from theW2K (SP2) task manager. Al other apps carry on just fine. Been using Opera instead. Getting to like it.

After that, I restart IE 5.0 and go to some other pages: it loads most of the page and then appears to freeze, but if I wait a while it comes good and I can continue. This is not consistent - sometimes it goes perfectly OK. But there is definately something screwy with IE 5.0 now. (No recent hardware changes, by the way - or software changes of any significane.)

So: should I
  • Wipe Windows 2000 off this system and start again with a clean install?
  • Download IE 6.0 and install that over the top?
  • Forget about IE and just register my Opera?
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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Sorry to be so much the browser zealot, but have you tried mozilla?

For the rest:

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Internet Explorer > Change/Remove (wish we could stop here!) > Repair Internet Explorer

You really should be running 5.5 w/ bugfixes, though.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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Installing IE6 would probably fix your setup nicely, as well.

I really don't like the Opera web browser for reasons I've discussed at length in the past.
 

CougTek

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Are you connected by a phone line or by cable modem (or DSL?)?

If you are connected by LAN, go in your internet options -> Connections -> LAN settings. Uncheck all boxes. After that, always in your internet options, go to General -> Delete Temporary Internet files. Check the box to delete all offline content. Once it's done, close IE.

Go to Start -> Search -> For Files or Folders... Search all your *.tmp on your hard drive and delete them.

Restart IE and tell me if it worked.

Using something else than IE should also be a good idea. However, Opera 6 kept crashing three or four times a week when I used it so I gave it its 4%.
 

Mercutio

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No problem here. We each offered a different solution to his Tannin's difficulty.

I've found Opera to be unstable, too. The only time since the .9 release that Moz has crashed was the day my cats unplugged the fileserver containing my Netscape profile from the rest of my network.
 

CougTek

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I like Mozilla too since I learned how to set the bookmarks properly (I place each folders in the Personal Bar for easy and quick access while browsing).

The 0.98 build is slow to come. I'm waiting for it since I start reading the Status update column on the front page. There seem to be a lot of bug fixes and speed optimizations coming with this build. I was sure it was to be released this past monday, but it now looks like we'll have to wait till next monday.

BTW, is it I learned or I learn when this verb is used at the past? My irregular verbs' sheet that I had in high school for my english class is long gone now.
 

time

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Learned.

Perversely, after criticizing Opera 6 when it came out, I'm somewhat more relaxed now, and use it a lot.

But I won't register it until they relase the next build - IMO if you've already paid for verion 5, there's no where near enough in 6 to justify paying again.

Interestingly Coug, I thought I had some instability issues at first, but I can't recall it crashing since on either the Win95 or Win2k platform we run it on. Maybe I just didn't notice.

Tannin, one of the big features of Opera for me is the MDI interface. As you don't like that and use SDI instead, I don't know how useful Opera is for you over IE.

Mercutio, have you used a Windows browser to run Webmin on a *nix box? So far, the only browser I've tried that works completely is Netscape 4.7. IE runs s-l-o-w-l-y and has a heart attack when you run the file manager function. Mozilla 0.96 can't login (appears to be a bug). Opera 5's security is too inflexible and it refuses to accept the certificate. Opera 6 works just great ... at first, then goes to sleep or something (I can't remember exactly now).
 

Groltz

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While this is not likely a solution to Mr. Wilson's problem, I thought I might share a little alteration I made to IE6.

You know how you can go Tools>>>Internet Options>>>General Tab>>>Temporary Internet Files (Section)>>>Settings>>>Move Folder?
I moved the Temporary Internet Files folder onto a 26MB ram-drive by AR Soft. This particular ram-drive works well with both Windows 2000 & XP. (I've used it with both) It easily configured through a control panel applet.

This isn't a very original idea, but I've been very happy with the results. Saving cache files to a ram-drive has the benefit of faster writing and a complete flushing of the contents when the computer is rebooted. As an added benefit, that nasty index.dat file gets killed during the reboot too.

Good luck with the problem, Tony. I can't think of any solutions that haven't already been stated.

--Steve
 

Mercutio

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time said:
Mercutio, have you used a Windows browser to run Webmin on a *nix box? So far, the only browser I've tried that works completely is Netscape 4.7. IE runs s-l-o-w-l-y and has a heart attack when you run the file manager function. Mozilla 0.96 can't login (appears to be a bug). Opera 5's security is too inflexible and it refuses to accept the certificate. Opera 6 works just great ... at first, then goes to sleep or something (I can't remember exactly now).

I keep VNC windows to my non-Windows machines open all the time so there's not much to do with webmin.
I use Mozilla for windows to do things with webmin from time to time, mostly quickie changes like stopping samba or something. I don't even have a java VM installed on most of my machines, so a number of the features don't even work (file manager, SSH client, VNC client). Honestly, I don't have many problems, but I also have lots of other tools that I use regularly.
 

Tea

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OK. Step one completed. I registered Opera 6.0. On impulse, I took the offer and registered the Linux version as well. Now all I have to do is find a machine to load Linux on :-?

Next step ... try to fix IE 5.0 using the Groltz method. But later.
 

Tannin

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Oh, sorry Groltz, I forgot to mention that I'm on dial-up. I figured trying your cure couldn't do any harm, even so. After that, if no results, I'll try IE 6.0.

(I'm really due for a clean install, and probably go back to NT 4.0 rather than my current W2K, but I'll play around a bit first. Besides, that would remind me that I'm getting tight for space, and storage is so damn expensive.)
 

CougTek

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Why is there a class="postbody"> in my previous post? I only quoted Handruin and add "Thanks" after the quote. First time it happens. Another bug?
 

Groltz

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I forgot to mention that I'm on dial-up

Even though it appears on a page with a bunch of DSL and cable-modem tweaks, I don't believe those connection types are necessary for using the Windows 2000 Web Patch.
 

GMac

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I.E 5.0 Problems

Sounds familiar :cry: My IE 5.0 installation has also become rather flaky, so I've upgraded to 5.5. Problem is I've only got a clunky 56K dial-up connection at home and SP2 is a 17MB download :( (I got IE 5.5 off a magazine cover disk BTW) . I'd love to get the service pack on CD (it won't download at work - I only get the setup wizard) so I can get it patched. I may also look at Mozilla, as that seems to download OK.

GM
 

timwhit

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I.E 5.0 Problems

GMac said:
Sounds familiar :cry: My IE 5.0 installation has also become rather flaky, so I've upgraded to 5.5. Problem is I've only got a clunky 56K dial-up connection at home and SP2 is a 17MB download :( (I got IE 5.5 off a magazine cover disk BTW) . I'd love to get the service pack on CD (it won't download at work - I only get the setup wizard) so I can get it patched. I may also look at Mozilla, as that seems to download OK.

GM

You can find the complete Network SP2 on the MS site, Its about 100MB or so. But if you have a fast connection at work, download it and it will work on any Win2k machine.

-Tim
 

timwhit

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Groltz said:
While this is not likely a solution to Mr. Wilson's problem, I thought I might share a little alteration I made to IE6.

You know how you can go Tools>>>Internet Options>>>General Tab>>>Temporary Internet Files (Section)>>>Settings>>>Move Folder?
I moved the Temporary Internet Files folder onto a 26MB ram-drive by AR Soft. This particular ram-drive works well with both Windows 2000 & XP. (I've used it with both) It easily configured through a control panel applet.

This isn't a very original idea, but I've been very happy with the results. Saving cache files to a ram-drive has the benefit of faster writing and a complete flushing of the contents when the computer is rebooted. As an added benefit, that nasty index.dat file gets killed during the reboot too.

Good luck with the problem, Tony. I can't think of any solutions that haven't already been stated.

--Steve

Ok, I installed this ram-drive because I've been wanting to try a free one out for quite some time. It does seem to make browsing faster. At least on this site.

One question though, as soon as I load up the internet cache onto the ramdrive it is already 10MB filled up. I see a file called index.dat which is 8mb for some reason. I just cleared the internet cache, so what is this file?

You say that it is deleted everytime that the system is rebooted, but I rarely ever reboot my system because I am always running an FTP. Is there any other way to delete this "evil file"? I can't even see it in explorer, I have to go to the command prompt to see it. And it won't let me delete it from there....

On the whole, I reccomend you guys try out the Ram disk, seems to speed things up quite a bit...

-Tim
 

timwhit

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Just rebooted and index.dat, is gone as you said it would be. Well it is recreated when I launched IE, albeit much smaller.

But what is this file? And why doesn't IE clear it by default?

-Tim
 

CougTek

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If you want to know what's index.dat, go in DOS mode and edit it. You'll find a few surprises there. A lot of very private informations like web pages you've browsed (even if you have deleted them in the temorary folder) and other potential harmful stuff is found there. There's even links to folders completly hidden from Windows and DOS that can be found into it. These folders probably store more private informations about yourself.

Index.dat is one of the many reason why several people firmly believes that Microsoft is evil.
 

GMac

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I.E 5.0 Problems

timwhit said:
GMac said:
Sounds familiar :cry: My IE 5.0 installation has also become rather flaky, so I've upgraded to 5.5. Problem is I've only got a clunky 56K dial-up connection at home and SP2 is a 17MB download :( (I got IE 5.5 off a magazine cover disk BTW) . I'd love to get the service pack on CD (it won't download at work - I only get the setup wizard) so I can get it patched. I may also look at Mozilla, as that seems to download OK.

GM

You can find the complete Network SP2 on the MS site, Its about 100MB or so. But if you have a fast connection at work, download it and it will work on any Win2k machine.

-Tim

Cheers Tim, is there something similar available for Win98 also? (I'm running that OS at home on one machine, 2000 on the other).

GM
 

timwhit

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I.E 5.0 Problems

I was just playing around with that Ramdisk and I decided to defragment it. Took about 10 seconds, and thats with over 2500 files on it. I wish all my hard disks were in RAM.
 
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