MS IE 4.0 installation and the BIOS?

[Warren S Nickerson <Warren_S_Nickerson -at- CCM -dot- AL -dot- INTEL -dot- COM>]

List:

I recently became aware of a potential source of the problems associated
with installing IE 4.0 -- corruption of the drive overlay program.

For those who aren't familiar with some of the innards of PCs:  the
built-in operating system (BIOS) of older PCs only "knows" how to handle
hard drives up to a certain size (504 MB.)  For PCs that have been upgraded
to a larger hard drive, a drive overlay program (e.g. EZ Drive) is also
installed on the boot sector to translate the large drive size into a
format understandable to the BIOS.  The boot sector is also where the BIOS
looks to find a map of the information on the rest of the hard drive.

Parts of Win95 reside in the boot sector of the hard drive.  I have been
told that installation process of certain programs writes to the boot
sector -- IE 4.0 was specifically mentioned.  The combination of programs
and operating systems in the boot sector can lead to corruption of the
drive overlay program, and lose the parts of the "map" of the hard drive.

I am curious if everyone out there who posted problems with the IE 4.0
install had upgraded the size of their hard drive without a corresponding
upgrade of the PC BIOS.  I am certainly willing to take an informal survey
off-line and post the results.  The information above was provided to me by
Micro Firmware at http://www.firmware.com.

For my own experience, I had downloaded a copy from MS's web site, and the
installation process turned my perfectly good home computer into a large
paperweight.  The recovery process was not pretty.

Thanks for your time.
Warren Nickerson



______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Microsoft IE 4.0
Author:  TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU at SMTPGATE
Date:    1/22/98 12:07 PM


The email of this Coates person didn't come through in your message. I'd
like to let this individual know about how Network Neighborhood, my
AS/400 connectivity software, DemoShield web demos, and more don't work
on my machine since I installed 4.01. What is the email address?

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, Daniel Wise wrote:

> Mr. coates,
>
> In your column published Monday, January 19, in the Birmingham (AL) News you
> extoll the virtues of IE 4.0, pointing out that it is free with Win95.  I do
> not pretend to be an expert on browsers; far from it.
>
> However, I have been reading comment after comment about the damage done by
> IE 4.0 when it is loaded *following* Win 95.  I have copied this note to the
> copyediting list and two technical writing lists where I am sure I have read
> about IE 4.0 deleting .DLLs.  I invite the regulars from all three lists to
> pass their experiences along to you--positive or negative.
>
> I know that my own son had this problem when he loaded IE 4.0.
>
> I think you do a disservice to your readers when you endorse a product
> without reservation solely on the basis of cost.  I also think you do an
> injustice to Netscape.  I have visited several Web sites on which Netscape
> was available free.  If the only difference between the two is cost, and IE
> 4.0 is going to damage or delete my files, I believe I would go ahead and
> pay the $40 or so to get software that works and leaves my other files
> alone.
>
> As with all things, it is possible my information is wrong.  That is why I
> have invited others to tell you their stories directly.
>
> Daniel E. Wise
> dewise -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com
>
>
>
>