From: jwgh at earthweb.com (Jacob Haller) Subject: Free, yet overpriced Date: 3 Apr 1998 Message-ID: <jwgh-ya02408000R0304981707020001@news.earthweb.com> Newsgroups: alt.tech-support.recoveryIt's interesting to see how quickly Microsoft can change my mood from mildly disgruntled to axe-murdering rage.
Boss calls up. IE4 problem: when he tries to use the 'File->Send->Page by Email' feature, nothing happens. I fiddle around with it a bit, can't make it work. Rather than bar him from his computer while I fiddle around more, I return to my own PC.
After a little while I decide that it looks like the feature just doesn't work, period--unless maybe you use Microsoft Mail or some other horrendous non-RFC822-compliant steaming pile of excrement. Well, OK, maybe this is a problem they know about and have a solution for. So I got to http://home.microsoft.com/, scroll down to the bottom, and click on the MSIE button.
OK, so fine, that link is broken. A click or two more and I'm at the MSIE page. A window pops up. "Do you want to install and run 'Microsoft Web Navigator ActiveX Control' [. . .]" Why the fuck would I want to? I click "No", making sure that the little box on the bottom of the screen marked "Always trust content from Microsoft Corporation" is unchecked, since that's pretty much the opposite of my attitude.
Scroll down, scroll down...Ah, support. Click on that.
Now I get to enroll in Microsoft's own little inquisition, where they ask me what kind of computer I use, what I had for lunch, what my company's annual budget is, etc. I always enjoy it when companies put me through the Spanish Inquisition because I'm trying to find out why their buggy software is screwing up. (And no, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition, though I should have been.)
Another web page opens up. So does another dialogue box. "Do you want to install and run 'Survey Wizard' signed by [. . .]"
"FUCK NO!" I scream at my computer screen and stab furiously at my mouse's button.
Now we get to the brass tacks. "My search is about:" OK, it's about MSIE 4. "I want to search by:" Keywords looks good. "My question is about:" "send page by email" seems like a good place to start.
Click on "Find".
A new dialogue box opens up. "lexplore: This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If the problem persists, contact the program vendor." Close that, and I get to see "Microsoft Internet Explorer: There was an internal error."
Restart. Repeat above steps. Same result.
Maybe I'll try it from MacLynx now.
-jwgh