Internet Explorer 5 Bugs and Fixes

Here's a list of some of the bugs found in Internet Explorer 5 Beta II:

. The "Untrusted Scripted Paste" vulnerability in Internet Explorer 4.01(also referred to as the "Cuartango" vulnerability) could make it possible for a malicious hacker to create a web site that, when visited, is able to use script to read a file on the user's system if the hacker knows the exact name and path of the targeted file. This vulnerability could also affect software that uses HTML functionality provided by Internet Explorer 4.x or 5 Beta, even if Internet Explorer is not used as your default browser. Customers will not encounter the Untrusted Scripted Paste issue as part of their normal Web browsing of popular sites. A skilled hacker has to purposefully create malicious script on their site in order for a customer to be affected by this. There have not been any reports of customers being affected by this issue(Microsoft knows of this bug and will be fixed in the final version of IE 5).

. If Internet Explorer 5 has been set to Offline mode, the Internet
Connection wizard will fail to connect to the Microsoft Referral Service,
resulting in an error page. To work around this issue, turn off
Offline mode before you run the Internet Connection wizard.

To turn off Offline mode:
1. Start Internet Explorer 5, click the File menu, and then click
Work Offline to remove the check mark.
2. Run the Internet Connection wizard.

. If a dialog box titled Work Offline, requesting that you work offline
or try the connection again, appears the first time you run
Internet Explorer 5, Internet Explorer is not detecting your connection
to the Internet. Click Try Again, and Internet Explorer will detect the
active connection.

. If you do not have an active connection to the Internet and the option
Dial The Default Connection When Needed" in not selected, starting
Internet Explorer will result in the "Web page not available when
offline" error. To be prompted to dial a connection, on the Tools menu,
click Internet Options, click the Connections tab, and then select the Dial
The Default Connection When Needed check box.

. Internet Explorer 5 provides added functionality enabling you to
configure proxy server settings for each dial-up connection. When
you upgrade Internet Explorer with the previous proxy server settings
enabled, Internet Explorer 5 applies those settings to all existing
dial-up connections. The first time a connection is used that may not
require a proxy server, Internet Explorer will prompt you for confirmation.

To change proxy settings:
1. On the Tools menu in Internet Explorer, click Internet Options.
2. On the Connection tab, click the dial-up connection in the list of
available connections, and then click the Settings button.

. If you used a proxy server with Internet Explorer 4.x and then upgraded
to the Internet Explorer 5 beta release, you may have problems automatically
connecting to the Internet. This may occur even if the option named Dial
The Default Connection When Needed is selected. You can resolve this issue
by performing the following steps:

1. Click the Start button, point to Settings, and then Click Control Panel.
2. Double-click the Internet icon.
3. On the Connections tab, click the LAN Settings button.
4. Select the Do Not Allow Internet Applications To Use This Connection
check box.
5. Click OK twice.

. When connecting to secure Web sites, you will be prompted with an
authentication dialog box. At this time there is a 63-character limit
to the number of characters that can be entered for the username and
password. This may be a problem in deeply structured domains where you
are required to use your e-mail name as a username or password.

. Internet Explorer 5 has an improved FTP user interface when direct
access to an FTP server is available. This feature allows file upload,
drag-and-drop support, file deletion, and the downloading of several
directories. If you discover an issue in the new FTP user interface that
blocks FTP functionality, the feature can be disabled by typing the
following:
    regsvr32.exe /u msieftp.dll
in a command window while in the directory C:\Windows\System
(or C:\Winnt\System32 on Windows NT systems).

The FTP feature is new and has the following outstanding
issues in this release:

- Progress dialog boxes are not finished for all operations.
- When opening a file, the FTP feature may not understand it's a file,
and think it's a directory.
- Copying from server to server is not supported.
- LoginAs may not work correctly.
- FTP doesn't recognize Offline mode.
- You may receive script errors if you are using Web view.
- The BACKSPACE key doesn't take you to the previous location unless it
was an HTTP site.

If you are unable to see the new FTP user interface, you are probably
being blocked by a CERN-type proxy server. You can verify this by trying to
connect to the server by using FTP.exe. You can work around this issue by
using a non-CERN-type proxy server, such as Microsoft Remote WinSock.

. The AutoSelect feature, which you get to by clicking the Language command
on the View menu, requires that the corresponding language support files are
installed on your computer. The language support files can be obtained from
the Internet Explorer 5 Add-On Components page.

. Internet Explorer 5 Beta might not properly display a Web page that uses
frames. The page may appear blank, 3-D borders might not appear, or some framed
pages might not load. The problem is that the page defining the frames might
not be written correctly with the <FRAMESET> tag within the <HEAD> and </HEAD>
tags.

. Once you save a password (in a Web page) with the AutoComplete feature turned
on, the password will be filled in automatically whenever you visit that page
until the password is deleted, even if AutoComplete for passwords is turned off.

To disable completion of stored passwords
1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
2. On the Content tab, click AutoComplete.
3. Click Clear Passwords to clear all stored passwords.

. When a script error occurs in a dynamic HTML (DHTML) behavior that is
implemented through an HTML component (HTC), the error will be reported
as being in the main HTML document rather than in the HTC file. The line
number and error that occurred will be correct for the HTC file. To work
around the issue, behaviors implemented as HTC alerts can be used to signify
progress through the HTC script code or to update the window.status property
with the appropriate data displayed in the status bar.

. There are some known issues related to filters and transitions in this
release of Internet Explorer 5. Examples of these include:

- Transitions using Filter::RevealTrans cause the filter to display
incorrect black color between transitions before reaching final state.
- Transitions using Filter::BlendTrans do not use correct colors, with
flawed color palette effect.
- Filters involving transitions on input tags may not function correctly.
- Filters and transitions clip incorrectly during transitioning, causing
transitions not to fill the complete region.
- Objects within IFRAME with Filter::RevealTrans may not transition.

These issues will be fixed for the final release of Internet Explorer 5.

. When you use the AutoSearch feature in Internet Explorer 5 Beta, the
browser will not currently search for sites ending with .net. This issue
will be fixed for the final release of Internet Explorer 5.

. If you go to a Web page that requires an object such as Data Binding, and
the object is not installed, Internet Explorer will "Install on Demand" (IOD).
Immediately upon installation of the object, the script on the page will
cause a script error. Refresh the page and the script will work properly.

. In Internet Explorer 5 Beta, auto-detection of the language used on a Web page
is unreliable and may prompt you to download unneeded language packs. If this
occurs, cancel the download; the browser will continue to operate normally.

. When you print a Web page containing an ActiveX control, the contents
of the control are offset incorrectly by an amount equal to the non-printable
area at the top and left of the page.

. In this release, if you click the Clear Forms button to clear AutoComplete
information, username and password data will be erased along with the form
information. Web addresses are not affected.

. URLs that begin with https:// and lowercase or uppercase ANSI characters
will not load in the Windows Media Player.

. If you run a non-Far East language version of Windows NT 4.0, please be aware
that if you have installed many large fonts, the system's ability to utilize
those fonts may be exceeded. If Far East language Web pages do not display
correctly, please uninstall unnecessary fonts.

. Internet Explorer 5 uses a new standard to transmit non-English URLs to the
server. URLs are now encoded in a character encoding standard called UTF-8.
If the server is running Microsoft Internet Information Server 4 or later,
the URLs will work as expected. Many other servers are not enabled to
process URLs encoded in UTF-8. To use non-English characters in URLs on
these servers, click the Tools menu, click Internet Options, click the
Advanced tab, and then clear the box labeled Always Send URLs As UTF-8.

This beta release of Internet Explorer 5 also transmits queries encoded
in UTF-8, unless they are submitted as part of a FORM on an HTML page
the Always Send URLs As UTF-8 check box is cleared. This will be resolved
for the final release.

. Pages that use single quotation marks in an inline event handler will cause
script errors with this release of Internet Explorer 5. You can make
these pages functional by switching to double quotation marks.

Here are some examples of the VB Script syntax that will cause an error in
this beta release:
A. String parameters to a function:
    <div onclick="myfunction('myparam', 'myparam2' )">div text</div>
    <div onclick="myfunction 'myparam', 'myparam2' ">
B. Comments in the handler:
    <div onclick="myfunction() 'my comment">
C. A literal string:
    <div onclick="myvariable='my string' ">

To work around this problem for this beta release, page authors need to
change the following things for broken event handlers:
1. Change the outer double quotation marks to single quotation marks; for
example,
    <div onclick=' ... '>
2. Surround all strings in inline event handlers with double quotation marks.
    For example, you would change the syntax of the first example above
    to the following:
    <div onclick='myfunction("myparam","myparam2") '>

. In this release, VBScript does not scope object names correctly in forms.
To work around this, always fully qualify the object name when referring
to it in VBScript.

This HTML example will fail as it references Target1, which is available
only in Form1, not in the document.

    <FORM NAME="Form1">
    <SELECT NAME="Target1">
    <OPTION VALUE="Test">Click Me!
    </SELECT>
    <INPUT TYPE="button" Language="VBScript" onClick="alert
    (Target1.selectedIndex.value)" Value="Display Value">
    </form>

To fix this problem, Target1 needs to be qualified further with the document
and form name--in this case, document.Form1.Target1.selectedIndex.value. The
working HTML should look like the following:

    <FORM NAME="Form1">
    <SELECT NAME="Target1">
    <OPTION VALUE="Test">Click Me!
    </SELECT>
    <INPUT TYPE="button" Language="VBScript"
    onClick="alert(document.Form1.Target1.selectedIndex.value)"
    Value="Display Value">
    </form>

.The Internet Explorer 4.x compatibility option is useful to Web
developers who want to view and test their Web sites on different
versions of Internet Explorer using the same computer. You may not
be able to change all settings for the browser while in this mode.
When using the compatibility option, you should change Internet
Options through Control Panel, not through the browser's Internet
Options on the View menu.

. For systems using Internet Information Server, there may be problems with
the server operation on the first restart that is part of the installation
process for Internet Explorer 5. To resolve this issue, restart the computer
after the installation of Internet Explorer is complete.

. If Outlook 98 and Outlook Express are installed, the address book is shared.
For this release, you are unable to add a digital signature to shared
address-book entries. To work around this, open the Address Book, click the
Tools menu, and then click Options. Click Do Not Share. This removes the shared
address book and allows the addition of a digital signature to all address
book entries.

. If you install Internet Explorer 5 as part of Microsoft Office 2000, and then
uninstall Internet Explorer 5, Microsoft PowerPoint may be unable to open
certain files. To correct this, reinstall Internet Explorer 5.

. A spreadsheet generated in Microsoft Excel and saved as HTML can be viewed in
Internet Explorer 5. Internet Explorer does not currently allow the spreadsheet
to be saved as HTML from within the browser. To edit the spreadsheet, use Excel
to open the original HTML file.

. If you install Internet Explorer 5 Beta with MSDN97 and you type a file location
URL in InfoViewer, the file is not displayed correctly. For this release, we do
not recommend typing file locations into the MSDN97 InfoViewer Address bar.

. If you install the Internet Explorer 5 Beta with Home Publishing '99
and Greetings '99, we advise against working in the "e-mail projects"
portion of these products. The functionality affected when running
the e-mail projects portion of the product includes selecting and
formatting objects, saving and loading projects, and previewing messages.
To work around this issue, uninstall Internet Explorer 5 Beta to restore the
full functionality of the Home Publishing and Greetings products.

. If you install Internet Explorer 5 Beta, you may encounter problems
using the debugger for script on client and server (ASP) pages. You may
also encounter problems using the HTML editor in Microsoft Visual Interdev
or Visual J++, or the DHTML Page Designer in Visual Basic. Specifically,
projects created using the VB Page Designer on a computer with the
Internet Explorer 5 beta installed will not run on computers with Internet
Explorer 4.0.

. If you install Internet Explorer 5 Beta with Windows 9x platforms,
documents longer than 5 or 6 pages may not print properly. This problem does
not effect Windows NT.

. Outlook Express 5 Beta 2 DLL's(MAPI32.DLL) encounter compatiblity problems with certain Virus Scanners. Uncomfirmed by Microsoft.

Here's a list of some of the bugs found in Internet Explorer 5 Beta 1:

. Computer freezes when trying to recover your Active Desktop without restarting. FIXED IN BETA II.

. When attempting to save a file (download/picture, etc.), explorer.exe will crash if you attempt to create a folder in the save/save as dialog. FIXED IN BETA II.

. Estimated download times from ftp servers are wildly inaccurate for multiple downloads from the same server (select several files to download, estimated time is millions of minutes even seconds before download complete). Unknown if fixed in beta II.

. Can't see images on web pages, this can be solved by turning off catch clicks for IE4 in Getright, or un-installing Getright totally. FIXED IN BETA II.

. Paint Shop Pro 5 toolbar not displaying
Here is a workaround for the problem of IE5.0b killing the toolbar in Paint Shop Pro 5. I have posted a zip file on my personal web site at http://home.mci2000.com/~william.g.james@mci2000.com/ie5psp5fix.zip.

What it involves is a Regedit (.reg) file to correct the Windows Registry, adding the toolbar back to PSP5. However, once you launch IE5.0b again, it changes the Registry back, so what I(the creator of the software) have done is create a batch file to run the Rededit file (with a /s command line to eliminate the Regedit OK window), then launch PSP. Running the batch file from a shortcut allows it to be run minimized and exit automatically. Use it when you need PSP5.

I picked up the basic idea in the comp.graphics.apps.paint-shop-pro newsgroup, and added the switch to run Regedit silent, the DOS shortcut to run the batch file minimized, and packaged it up in the zip file with basic instructions in the readme.txt file. Unknown if fixed in beta II.

. Sound Problems (for Windows 95 and Windows 98). FIXED IN BETA II.

. Unstable/Slow Connections. FIXED IN BETA II.

. Iexplorer.exe crashes if you disconnect while a Java applet is loading(sometimes). FIXED IN BETA II.

. Opening compressed folders (a feature of Plus! 98) can cause an error and it's believed to be a known problem with the Internet Explorer 5 Developers Preview. There is no known workaround, hopefully it will be fixed in the final release of IE5. On my(John's) computer the Explorer.exe crashes and the computer says there was an internal error. Partly fixed in Beta II, explorer.exe chrases after you close the window.

. In the FTP feature the Login As dialog box does not work. Include username and password in the URL for now -for example:
ftp://user:password@ftp.server.com/dir/. FIXED IN BETA II.