THE LIST
A low-tech but ingeniously distributed E-letter by Mr. E
Vol. I, No. 4 - May 19, 2001
To read previous issues of The E-List, click here.
Send comments about The E-List to: elist@aumha.org
Please see Legal Notice.

This newsletter tracks new information, and improvements in existing information, on www.aumha.org, my website supporting Windows desktop systems and leading application software. I also include small, useful items that might not find a permanent place on the site, but that I would like to pass along.

Click here to subscribe. If you subscribe, you will receive email notification when there is a new edition of the newsletter. (You will not receive the newsletter itself by email. That's why I call it low-tech.) My intention is to provide a new and further way to serve the more than 50,000 people per month (and growing) who visit my site. Previous newsletters are available online, and their content searchable through this site's search engine. Enjoy! -- Jim Eshelman


CONTENTS of this Issue

  1. WINDOWS SUPPORT SITES: More HTML & VB help-sites
  2. KNOWLEDGE BASE Articles: Error Messages
  3. KNOWLEDGE BASE Articles: Hardware & Drivers
  4. KNOWLEDGE BASE Articles: Internet Explorer
  5. KNOWLEDGE BASE Articles: Windows ME

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 I AM MY ONLY AD!
My employer closed its doors for good in February.
If you find anything of value in this newsletter or on this site,
please view my resume and pass it along to someone. Thank you!
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WINDOWS SUPPORT SITES: HTML & VB Help-sites

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I plan to continue adding more resources to www.aumha.org that will assist those wanting to learn HTML or to expand their skills, or that will, in some other way, make web page development easier. Here are this week's three additions:

I've also made an important addition to the list of Visual Basic links. When my brother (and BAE-Software founder), Brian, was in town this last week, he pointed out that I had somehow missed the oldest and, in some ways, still the very best VB site on the web -- as classic as Coca Cola, and with far more, uh, "hot stuff" than Britney could ever fit into a Pepsi ad:


KB ARTICLES: Error Messages

VxD Dynamic Link Call: VPSYSMGR(01)+0000008 to (352b), Service 4 Win ME
This error message can appear in Win ME if you are using the Intel Create & Share Camera software, or the Alaris Videogram Creator software. Although the only real solution is to contact the software manufacturer for a newer, WinME-compatible version, this Knowledge Base article does give a work-around.


KB ARTICLES: Hardware & Drivers

Cannot Print to USB Printer Win98
This one is really simple: It's a bug in Win98, and Microsoft has a patch for it. The article tells you how to get the patch.

Windows 98 & ME Hardware/Device Driver Troubleshooting Resource Center
Microsoft continues the trend of adding KB pages that organize and, therefore, make more accessible several KB articles on a given topic. (Do you think maybe they got the idea from all the Windows support web sites that have been doing this for years? <g>) This one has already become enormously valuable to me -- I use it multiple times a day when answering hardware questions online. This page branches off into over three dozen separate links pages specializing in particular kinds of Win98 or Win ME hardware issues. There are separate linked sub-pages for: CD/DVD/CDR/CD-RW; floppy disk controllers; game controllers; hard disk controllers; hard disks; IEEE; keyboards; memory; modems; monitors; mouse; network adapters; PCMCIA - PC cards; ports; printers; scanners & cameras; sound cards; storage devices; system devices; unknown devices; USB; and video adapters -- all differentiated between Win98 and Win ME. As I already said: An enormously valuable and helpful page.


KB ARTICLES: Internet Explorer

This week's new or revised articles on IE include the following, all of which were added to my site:

Internet Explorer Renegotiates Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Connection Every Two Minutes
IE 5.x for Win95, Win98, Win98 SE, or Win NT 4.0
SSL, as you may know, is an online security protocol responsible for such things as the small padlock image in the lower right-hand corner of your browser when you hit an SSL-secured page. An SSL session is renegotiated every 2 minutes which, normally, isn't a problem -- but, if you are also using basic authentication for the SSL session, you will get driven absolutely bonkers by having to confirm your connect credentials every 120 seconds when the authentication box pops up again! Good news, though: MS has a patch for this, which works on IE 5.01 and later versions. (If you are only using 5.0, you have to upgrade to 5.01 or later.) This article tells you how to contact MS to get the supported fix, and also gives a Registry fix as a work-around.

Blank Desktop or Illegal Operations Error Message After You Install Internet Explorer IE5.0 or later
Maybe SHDOCVW.DLL is missing or damaged. Maybe SCANREG (the Windows Registry Checker) inappropriately restored an earlier copy of your Registry after you installed IE. Or maybe you have the Pretty Park or MTX virus. In any of these cases, you may get the above problem right after installing a new version of IE. The article, of course, tells you what to do about it.

How to Add or Remove Windows Desktop Update IE 4.x (various versions)
This topic has been of renewed interest lately, according to recent newsgroup posts, so I decided to make it more accessible.

As with all of KB article additions mentioned in The E-List, you will find these articles added to the respective Knowledge Base Articles pages on my site. They can also be accessed through my site search engine or, of course, by clicking on their links above.


KB ARTICLES: Windows ME

Microsoft Fax Not Supported on WinME
If you have read MS-MVP Gary Woodruff's superb article, Suggestions for Preparing to Install Windows Millennium Edition as an Upgrade, you may recall that he advises making sure Microsoft Fax is already installed on your Win98 system before you upgrade it to Win ME. This is because you can't install it once Win ME is in place. Microsoft intentionally disabled this capability. This article explains why. It is, simply, that they never tested it on Win ME, so they can't guarantee that it works. The article seems to discourage trying it. I leave that decision to you, mentioning only that many people have found it works just fine, others have found it doesn't work, and others have had problems with it. Read the article to educate yourself on the basic points.


Happy computing, everyone!

Jim Eshelman

(Comments about The E-List can be sent to: elist@aumha.org)

THE NECESSARY LEGAL STUFF
DISCLAIMER: Any information given in this newsletter, or on any other part of the www.aumha.org website, is researched by me and believed to be accurate. However, I cannot guarantee, and do not guarantee, that all the information provided will work on all computer systems, for all users, all the time. Also, I sometimes make mistakes (that's life!), and it is possible I made one or more of them here. All information herein is offered as-is and without warranty of any kind. In other words, I rely on the best information sources I can, and do my best to get it to you accurately; and, thereafter, you take your life in your own hands if you trust me on it. Neither James Eshelman, this site, outside contributors to this site, people quoted on this site, nor my cat is/are responsible for any loss, injury, or damage, direct or consequential, resulting from application of any information presented here.

The E-List. Copyright © 2001 by James A. Eshelman. All Rights Reserved.

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