Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Jocelyn Kasamoto December 1999 University of Hawai‘i Information Technology Services
Table of Contents Introduction...... 1 Version...... 1 Requirements to Run IE5 ...... 1 Favorites...... 1 Backing up Your Favorites...... 2 Starting IE ...... 4 Settings ...... 4 Java ...... 8 Helper Applications ...... 10 Searching the Internet...... 11 Common Messages/Errors ...... 11 Where to Get Additional Help...... 13
Introduction
This document provides information on some of the advanced features of Internet Explorer 5 (IE5). See the ITS document Getting Started with Internet Explorer for Windows 95/98 (WIN9X006) for Internet Explorer (IE) and web browsing basics.
Version
To find out which version of IE you are running, click on Help then click on About Internet Explorer.
Requirements to Run IE5
• Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0
• Memory Windows 95/98: 16 MB RAM minimum Windows NT: 32 MB RAM minimum
• Hard drive space Minimal install (browser only) Required for install: 45 MB Required to run: 27 MB after restart
Typical install Required for install: 70 MB Required to run: 55 MB after restart
Full install Required for install: 111 MB Required to run: 80 MB after restart
Favorites
IE5 has something similar to bookmarks in Netscape. IE5 calls them favorites. This isn’t a file, but rather a folder that contains all the links. You can add your own links to this by going to the menu bar and
______Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Page 1 clicking on Favorites, then Add to Favorites. (You can’t do this by clicking on the Favorites button on the toolbar.) This will make a link to the current page you are on and place it into the Favorites folder for future access.
Backing up Your Favorites
You can backup your links by opening up the Favorites folder in c:\windows\favorites and copying the links to a floppy disk or some other media.
To do this, double click My Computer on the desktop.
Double click on the “C” drive. Double click on the Windows folder. Depending on your version of windows you will get one of two windows. A window with all the directories and files will appear or a blank window will appear with a warning on the left side. If the warning appears just click the Show Files link and then you will see the directories and files.
After that you should be able to see a folder called Favorites.
______Page 2 Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Double click on the Favorites folder and you will see all your links. There may be other folders or links to folders that have nothing to do with the Internet such as My Documents.
Highlight all the links you want to backup by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the links you want to backup. Then right click on any of the highlighted links and choose Copy.
______Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Page 3 Double click the My Computer icon. Right click on the device you want to backup your links to, for example the floppy drive, then click Paste. That will backup your selected favorites to the floppy disk.
Starting IE
To start IE, double click on the IE icon on your desktop.
Settings
You can change the settings for IE5 by going to the menu bar and clicking Tools then clicking on Internet Options.
______Page 4 Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Under the General tab there are many options you can adjust. To change the default web home page, type any valid web address (also called a URL) in the Address box. Next time you start IE5 this is the page that will appear.
The history and cache can also be cleared from this window. The history is a record of all the web sites you have been to. For the settings above, history will be kept for 10 days. By clicking on the History button (on the IE toolbar), you can quickly view the web sites that you visited today, yesterday or last week. You can also view history by site, by most visited or by order visited. This allows you to only type in the address once, then when typing that address again it will try to match it with one that is in the history. This can be useful, if you don’t want to put a page into Favorites, but you go to that page often. You will want to clear the history once in a while, because it will get clogged with addresses which will make it harder to get to web pages. To clear it just click on the Clear History button.
______Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Page 5 Temporary Internet Files or cache are all the temporary files, html pages, and graphics you get when viewing a web page. This should also be cleared regularly because it takes up space on your hard drive. To clear cache, click on Delete Files under Temporary Internet Files. Click OK to confirm the deletion. Default location of these files is in c:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\.
The Security tab allows you to alter how much control you give to the browser and how much control you want. The range of control varies from letting the browser do everything the web site says (even if it’s harmful) to letting you make all the decisions about what you will accept. Both of these are at the opposite ends of the spectrum and depend on your specific needs. Usually it is sufficient to leave the settings at default which is a medium security level.
The Content tab allows you to control access to certain web sites. For example, you can prohibit access to web sites with offensive language. To do this click “Enable” in the content advisor box.
______Page 6 Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Enter a password so people can’t change it back then setup how tolerant you want the browser to be.
Note: write down your supervisor password and keep it in a safe place. If you forget it, you will have to reinstall Windows to create a new one.
______Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Page 7 The Ratings window allows you to change the sensitivity of the browser. (It ranges from zero tolerance to let everything through.) By default it will filter out everything that violates any of the 4 category ratings at the zero tolerance level. There are 4 levels for each category.
Note: The last three tabs “Connection”, “Programs”, and “Advanced” are for advanced features and should be used with caution.
Java
Microsoft Virtual Machine is supported in IE to run Java. To check if Java VM is installed, click on Tools on the menu bar, click on Internet options then click on the Advanced tab. Java console must be enabled as shown below (you may need to scroll down to see this option).
______Page 8 Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Peoplesoft users must have IE 4.01 or IE 5.0 with VM Build 3234 (SDK for Java). To find out what version of Java virtual machine you are running, click on View on the menu bar and click on Java console. For example, if using IE 5.0 with VM 3234, your Java console release would say “5.0.0.3234”.
______Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Page 9 If you do not have Java installed, you will need to download Microsoft Virtual Machine from windowsupdate.microsoft.com. Select Product Updates to get a list of products applicable for your computer. Check off Microsoft Virtual Machine and click on download. Follow instructions on your screen to install Microsoft VM. You will have to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
Note: if your download fails, make sure that signed ActiveX controls are enabled by clicking on Tools, Internet Options, Security, and Custom Level.
IE5 has ActiveX which was developed by Microsoft. It allows for additional functionality on your system, like auto updates from Microsoft or Visual Basic programs to run from the web. This also has some security holes and allows mischievous behavior by some people so you need to be careful and install the recommended security patches released by Microsoft and found on their site: windowsupdate.microsoft.com.
Helper Applications
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Adobe Acrobat Reader is a helper application that allows you to read files in PDF format that preserve the look and feel of the original document even across different platforms. A lot of Internet documents are written in PDF. This program can be obtained from www.adobe.com. After you install the program just click on links that contain PDF files as usual. Acrobat Reader will startup automatically and you will be able to view the document.
Real Player
Another useful helper application is Real Player. One of the things this program allows you to do is listen to streaming audio files found at Internet radio websites. This program can be obtained from www.real.com. After installation, you can access the Real Player in two ways. First, if a web site has a link to a real audio file, you can click the link and the Real Player will launch and begin playing the file. You can also start the Real Player from outside the browser by clicking on the blue balloon icon on the task bar (in the lower right of the screen, to the left of the clock).
QuickTime
QuickTime Player developed by Apple Computer allows IE to play movie files that are often found on the Internet. You can download QuickTime Player from www.apple.com/quicktime.
Shockwave
Another useful program is Shockwave from Macromedia. This program allows you to see animations and use different pointers on web pages that use Shockwave. It can be downloaded from www.shockwave.com. After installation, when you go to a Shockwave enabled website you will see animations, hear sounds, and maybe even have a different pointer then the standard arrow and finger.
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player developed by Microsoft can be downloaded from windowsupdate.microsoft.com under Product Updates. This player allows you to play most multimedia content formats on the Internet including Windows Media, QuickTime, AVI, WAV, MP3 and others.
There are hundreds of different plug-ins out there. Usually, clicking on certain links will prompt you to download a plug-in. Use caution when visiting an unknown site as that could be another way security could be breached. Download from trusted sites only.
______Page 10 Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Searching the Internet
You can search the Internet by clicking on the Search button in IE5 or by manually typing in the address of a search engine then conducting the search from the search engine’s page using key words. Here are some good search engines:
Yahoo! – www.yahoo.com Lycos – www.lycos.com Hotbot – www.hotbot.com Alta Vista – www.altavista.com Infoseek – www.infoseek.com WebCrawler – www.webcrawler.com
For tips on conducting searches on the Internet, see the ITS document Browser Searching Tips (INET001) available on-line at www.hawaii.edu/itsdocs/net/srchtips.pdf .
Common Messages/Errors
This warning appears when you submit unencrypted data over the Internet (usually in a form).
______Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 Page 11 This message appears when the web page you requested is not available, typically when the URL is misspelled. If the URL is typed correctly, the network connection could also be down or the server unavailable so you could try again later.
You can get “the page cannot be found” error message for several reasons: URL was typed incorrectly, the page was moved, its name was changed or the page is temporarily unavailable.
______Page 12 Intermediate Internet Explorer for PC WIN9X007 You can get the action canceled message when IE is unable to get to the requested page. It’s usually best to click on the Refresh button or try again later. The Refresh button forces the browser to reload the page from the web server (not cache).
Where to Get Additional Help
IE5 has online help which you can access by clicking on Help on the menu bar, then Contents and Index. You can also go through the online tutorial by clicking on Help, then Tour.
You can contact the ITS Help Desk for additional help by calling 956-8883, visiting the Help Desk in Keller 105 or sending email to [email protected].
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