"I have discovered a keystroke that will help Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 users. When typing a URL into the Address Bar, just type the name (for example, microsoft) and then press Ctrl-Enter. This keystroke appends http://www. and .com to whatever you type in the Address Bar."

Here's another you might like to try: If you type the name (as you described), then simply press Enter, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 first looks for the site as entered. When it fails to find the site, it appends http://www. and then it tries .com, .org, .edu, and so forth to try to locate the site. For example, if you type into the Address Bar

pcworld

and press Enter, Explorer fills in the full address

http://www.pcworld.com

DRAG-AND-DROP LINKS

"If you want to add a Web page to your Links bar quickly, navigate to that page, then drag the E-icon from the top left corner of the page down to your Links bar. Release the mouse button when you find a spot on the Links bar--this makes the Web page available as a link until you decide to delete it."

The icon is the one associated with the Web page's Command box in the upper left corner of the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 window.

QUICK CUSTOMIZING

"Most Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 users know that you can choose View, Toolbars to select the features you want to have on the toolbars. There is, however, a quicker way to get to the Toolbars menu--just right-click the toolbar and you'll get the same menu that you get by choosing View, Toolbars."

DON'T FORGET TO RIGHT-CLICK

"Many people tend to ignore the right-click features of Windows 95 and 98 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. For example, most users know you can click the arrow at the right side of the Address Bar to expand the list of previously visited Web sites. However, many users don't realize you can right-click in the Address Bar itself to open a menu that offers Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, and Select All."

UPDATE FOR INTERNET EXPLORER WITH ACCESSIBILITY AIDS

Microsoft has consistently included features in its software that make it easier for anyone to use its products effectively, regardless of physical ability--and Internet Explorer is no exception. If you're taking advantage of these features, you should be aware of a recently released update from Microsoft that addresses several key performance, stability, and compatibility issues with accessibility aids. You can get the full details in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q196944. To download this update, visit the support area of Microsoft's Web Site at

http://support.microsoft.com/support

and search for the Knowledge Base article. It will direct you to the patch file.

STACK 'EM HOW YOU WANT 'EM

"When you're saving items to a Favorites folder in Internet Explorer, things tend to get mixed up and out of order after a while. Is there a way to make the Favorites folders display all items alphabetically?"

Well, yes and no. You can display the items alphabetically, but you're going to have to do all the work. In some ways, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 allows you to go one better than just an alphabetized list--you can arrange the items any way you like. Try this: Run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and choose Favorites. When the menu opens, use the mouse to drag whichever item is at the bottom of the list to the top of the list. When you reach the top of the list, release the mouse button, and the last item becomes the first item.

You can use the mouse to drag all the folders and URLs in your Favorites menu into whatever location you desire. That includes alphabetical order.

JUMP TO IT

"There are times when it is very convenient to edit an existing URL in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 Address Box. You can click at the spot where you'd like to make a change, but this is often a touchy operation. However, if you click in the Address Box and then press Ctrl-left arrow or Ctrl-right arrow (depending on which way you want to move), the cursor jumps to the next slash or period. This is a very easy way to get around in an address."

Let's look at an example of how to use this tip. Let's say the Address Box contains the URL:

http://www.pcworld.com

Click in the Address Box and place the cursor at the right side of the URL. If you press Ctrl-left arrow, the cursor moves to the period between pcworld and com. Press Ctrl-left arrow again, and you'll move to the period between www and pcworld. Now press Ctrl-right arrow to move back to the period between pcworld and com.

QUICK-SET YOUR PROPERTIES

"You don't have to run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 to set the properties. You don't even have to use the Control Panel to set them. All you have to do is right-click the E icon on your desktop and choose Properties from the menu."

When the Properties dialog box opens, click the appropriate tab and make your changes. When you finish with your settings, click OK to close the dialog box and save your selections. The next time you run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, it will use your new settings.

BACK IT UP

"Is there an easy way to back up the ISP information? I recently bought a new computer and had to call my provider to get going on the Internet. The technician at the ISP's office told me I should back up my Internet settings, but he didn't tell me how to do so."

This is another question we get on a regular basis. The information you seek is stored in the Windows 95/98 Registry. To make a backup, click Start, Run, type in

regedit

and press Enter. As always, be very careful when you are running RegEdit--you can do some serious damage to your system installation if you delete something you shouldn't or add something that doesn't belong.

When RegEdit opens, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\RemoteAccess. Click RemoteAccess to select it, then choose Registry, Export Registry File. When the Export Registry File dialog box appears, type a name and choose a location for your new file. Now click Save to save the file and close the dialog box.

Back in RegEdit, choose Registry, Exit to close the program.

Since one reason to make a backup is to protect yourself if your hard disk should fail, copy this file to a floppy disk or a Zip disk for safekeeping. If you need to restore the settings, locate your ISP REG file and double-click its icon. This merges the file with the Registry and restores your original settings.

WHO NEEDS A FONT BUTTON?

"Who needs the Font button on the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 toolbar? All you have to do to change the font is choose View, Fonts and make a selection. So I decided to get rid of the Font button in the toolbar.

"To get rid of the button, choose View, Internet Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Advanced tab. Now scroll down to Toolbar and deselect the Show Font Button check box. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your selection.

"The next time you run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, the Font button will not appear on the toolbar."

MY COMPUTER IN THE TASKBAR

"Is there any problem with putting My Computer in the taskbar when you're running Microsoft Internet Explorer 4?"

No problem at all. In fact, there are two ways to place My Computer in the taskbar: You can drag the My Computer icon to Quick Launch, or you can create a new toolbar for My Computer.

If you simply drag the My Computer icon to the Quick Launch toolbar, a shortcut to the My Computer folder appears in Quick Launch. To get each item in the My Computer folder to appear in the taskbar, right-click the taskbar and choose Toolbars, New Toolbar. When the New Toolbar dialog box opens, click My Computer to select it, then click OK.

Since there are a number of items in My Computer, they will consume most of the space on the taskbar. To save some space, you can right-click the new toolbar where there are no buttons and deselect Show Text. Now all the My Computer icons appear without titles.

A SHORT HISTORY

"When you need to research a specific topic, it's often best to delete all your previous History files and start with a clean slate."

Good point, and you can certainly delete your History files and start clean if you wish. However, although this was almost required in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3, it is much less important in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, since the program now dates the History files.

To delete your History, run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and choose View, Internet Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the General tab (if necessary) and click Clear History. When asked if you want to delete all the files, click Yes. Then click OK to close the Options dialog box.

LOCAL FAVORITES

"I'm almost sure I saw a tip on how to add a folder on the hard disk to the Favorites folder. Is this possible or am I nuts?"

Sorry, but we can only answer the first part of your question. Yes, it is possible to put a local folder into your Favorites folder. Here's how:

Run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and type into the Address Bar the folder you want to add to Favorites. For example, you might type

c:\data

and press Enter. This takes you to the requested folder. Now choose Favorites, Add To Favorites. When the Add To Favorites dialog box opens, you can click Create In to choose a folder for your new addition, or you can click OK to put the page into the main Favorites folder.

For example, suppose you have a folder named MyStuff. You would type

c:\MyStuff

in the Address Box. Then choose Favorites, Add To Favorites and choose a spot for your entry. The name entered into the Favorites folder will be MyStuff.

Now choose Favorites, MyStuff. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 will take you there.

SEND THIS PAGE

"Is there an easy way to e-mail an entire Web page to someone? Will the recipient get the whole page, pictures and all?"

Yes, you can send an entire page, and the recipient will get it, pictures and all. Just navigate to the page you want to send and choose File, Send, Page By E-mail. When Outlook Express opens, enter the address and click Send. That's all there is to it.

Things are a bit different when a page uses frames (and there are more of these every day). When the page you're sending has frames, a dialog box opens offering to send the page as a read-only page or as an attachment. If you simply want the recipient to view the page, choose Read Only.

You may want to test these options by sending a few pages to yourself before you send them to someone else.

EDIT FROM HERE

"Everyone knows you can edit a Web page in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 by clicking the Edit button. But did you know you can edit a Web page without even navigating to it? Try this: Click History. When History opens, right-click the page you want to edit and choose Edit. The page opens in FrontPage Express (assuming that's your default editor)."

MIX AND MATCH FAVORITES

"I have three systems upon which I now have three sets of favorites in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. Is there some easy way to merge the three files, removing duplicates, yet not losing anything?"

There sure is. The easiest option is to use Windows Explorer to copy the files from one Favorites folder to another.

Let's say you want to copy one set of Favorites to a floppy disk and then copy that data to a second computer. Put a blank floppy disk into drive A: and run Windows Explorer. Navigate to \Windows\Favorites and click the Favorites folder. The contents of the Favorites folder now appear in Windows Explorer's right pane.

Press Ctrl-A to select all the Favorites contents, then drag all the icons to the A: drive icon. This copies all the folders to the floppy disk.

Now place the floppy disk into the second computer's floppy disk drive and run Windows Explorer. Navigate to \Windows\Favorites and click the drive A: icon. Then press Ctrl-A to select all the Favorites files on the floppy disk. Drag them all to the Favorites folder on drive C:. If a dialog box appears asking if you want to replace existing files, click Yes To All to replace all files that have the same name.

DRAG AND DROP YOUR WAY TO HAPPINESS

"I don't know whether everyone knows this or not, but you can drag text from the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 browser to a word processor. If the word processor handles graphics, you can drag pictures from Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 as well."

To see how this works, run Internet Explorer 4 and set its size to cover about half of the screen. Then open your word processor (or WordPad) and set it to cover the other half of the screen. Move to the browser, select some text on the current Web page, and use the mouse to drag it to the word processor.

If you're using WordPad or a word processor that can handle pictures, try dragging a picture to the document, too.

SHOOT YOUR OWN WALLPAPER PIX

"Although you can ordinarily use only BMP files as wallpaper, if you have Active Desktop installed, you can make wallpaper of almost any picture file (BMP, JPG, GIF). To activate Active Desktop, right-click the desktop and choose Active Desktop, View As Web Page.

"To select your new wallpaper, right-click the desktop and choose Properties. When the Display Properties dialog box opens, click the Background tab and click Browse. Now locate and select the picture you'd like to use as wallpaper."

REAL KEYS FOR REALITY

There are shortcut keys to speed up your navigation through a VRML site.

Function/Keys
Go To/Ctrl-Shift-G
Pan/Ctrl-Shift-P
Roll/Ctrl-Shift-R
Straighten/Ctrl-Shift-U
Study/Ctrl-Shift-S
Turn/Ctrl-Shift-T
Walk/Ctrl-Shift-W
Zoom Out/Ctrl-Shift-Z

Once you become accustomed to using the keys, your VRML navigation will be smoother than ever before.

EASY DELETING

This is another of those tips that never seems to die. Is there any easy way to delete the addresses in the Address Bar without deleting the History.

Fear not, a solution exists. Some time back, we wrote a REG file designed to delete up to 20 addresses. Please remember that REG files are potentially dangerous, and that we have no way of guaranteeing that the following file will not damage your Windows installation.

To create the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following exactly as shown here, except for the line BLANK LINE GOES HERE. When you see this command, press Enter to create a blank line.

REGEDIT4

BLANK LINE GOES HERE

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs]

"url1"=""

"url2"=""

"url3"=""

"url4"=""

"url5"=""

"url6"=""

"url7"=""

"url8"=""

"url9"=""

"url10"=""

"url11"=""

"url12"=""

"url13"=""

"url14"=""

"url15"=""

"url16"=""

"url17"=""

"url18"=""

"url19"=""

"url20"=""

BLANK LINE GOES HERE

Now choose File, Save As. Choose a folder for storage, name the new file Addr.reg, and click Save. Make sure Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 isn't running, and double-click the Addr.reg icon to run the file. This removes up to 20 current addresses from the Registry.

FONT BUTTON NOT NEEDED?

"I very seldom use the Font button in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 toolbar, so I decided to see how things would go if I deleted it.

"To delete the Font button from the toolbar, run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and choose View, Internet Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Advanced tab. Scroll down to Toolbar and deselect the Show Font Button check box. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection. The next time you run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, you won't have the Font button in the toolbar.

"The fact that you have eliminated the Font button doesn't mean you can no longer change the fonts--all you have to do is choose View, Fonts and make your selection."

LOOKING FOR NAMES

"I am a college student, and I would like to use the Internet for most of my research. But I seem to have trouble finding specific names on the Internet. If I enter something like John Irving, I get a whole slew of entries for John and more for Irving. Is there a way to narrow the initial search so I don't get so many responses to look through?"

There is a simple solution. Most search engines do a better job of finding names if you enclose the name in quotes. For example, if you enter "John Irving", you should get a much better response. When we tried an autosearch on this, Yahoo returned five entries.

CLOSING TIME

"You can close all open programs at once using the taskbar. All you have to do is hold down the Ctrl key and click the taskbar icon of each program you want to close. After you have selected all the programs to close, right-click one of the selected icons and choose Close from the menu."

SATELLITE POSITIONS

"Want to know where Mir is right now? Or perhaps you'd like to see when your favorite Amateur Radio satellite will be in range.

"If you use Active Desktop, go to

http://www.pcworld.com/r/tw/1%2C2061%2Ctw-msie40617%2C00.html

When you get to the Active Desktop Gallery page, click Cool Utilities. After the next page opens, click J-Track Satellite Tracking. This places a world map on your desktop, showing the position of the selected satellites. To change the selections, click Config. When the configuration window opens, click the arrow at the right side of the Categories list and select the group in which your favorite satellite appears. Select the satellite you want to see and click Add. After you finish adding satellites, click Finish."

AN EASY WAY?

"My company recently upgraded from Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 to Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (without Active Desktop). Is there an easy way to switch graphics off and on in IE 4? In IE 3, you could just choose View, Options, and you'd see it on the first screen. In IE 4, you have to choose View, Internet Options, then click the Advanced tab. Then you have to scroll down to Multimedia. Seems like a major step backward in usability."

The steps you described are what you need to do to turn graphics on and off in IE 4. Don't forget, though, that you can always press the Spacebar to stop graphics from loading when things are moving too slowly.

Good luck!

EASY ACCESS

"I once read somewhere that you can access anything on your hard drive without ever leaving Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. Could you explain how one might do this?"

No problem. All you have to do is enter your folder name in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 Address Bar. Let's say you want to access a folder named Data on drive C:. Just type

c:\data

in the Address Bar and press Enter. To get back to your Internet site, click the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 back arrow (or press Backspace).

INTERNET STROKES

"Is it possible to assign keystrokes to a URL? I frequently use a particular Web page and would like to get to it quickly by pressing a few keys."

You sure can. Let's say you frequently visit the PC World site. You could assign the keys Ctrl-Alt-P to go immediately to

http://www.pcworld.com

Here's how. Click Start, Favorites, PC World (or whatever your entry is named). Next right-click the PC World entry and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Internet Shortcut tab. Then click in the Shortcut Key entry box and type P (in either caps or lowercase). This assigns Ctrl-Alt-P to the PC World Web site.

>From this point on, you can simply press Ctrl-Alt-P to go to the PC World page.

WHERE'S THE DATA?

"Recently, I filled out a form on the Web. I had to leave the form for a while to check on something, and when I came back, the form was empty. What happened to all the info I had already entered? Is this a bug in IE 4?"

Unfortunately, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 keeps the data only if the page is cached to disk and the data hasn't changed. Fortunately, this is not a bug--it's the default operation of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

CUSTOMIZE THE FOLDERS

"I just recently downloaded Microsoft Internet Explorer. I understand that you can put personal pictures into the desktop folders when using Internet Explorer 4. Would you explain how to do this? I assume you have to use the same picture in all folders. Is this the case?"

In the wonderful world of Internet Explorer 4, you can insert personal pictures into your desktop folders. You need not worry about having to use the same picture either; you can use a different picture in each folder.

To add a picture to a folder, let's assume that you already have a BMP file in mind and know where it is on your hard disk. Open the folder you want to add the picture to and choose View, Customize This Folder. When the Customize This Folder wizard opens, select the Choose A Background Picture radio button and click Next.

Now, click Browse and, when the Open dialog box appears, locate and double-click the picture file you want to use. (At this point, you will also want to close the dialog box.) Note: The default is BMP. If your picture is a GIF or JPG file, simply click the arrow at the right side of the Files Of Type list box and select the appropriate file type.

After you make your selection, click Next, Finish. Your picture should now appear in the folder background. If it doesn't appear, press F5 to refresh the folder.

FOLDERS MY WAY

"I sometimes like to add new folders to my Favorites folder to help keep things organized. The problem is that the new folder always seems to appear at the bottom of the menu, no matter what I name it. Is there a way to get new folders placed at the top of the menu?"

Organized folders (in any order) await you. As we've mentioned in past tips, you can place folders and URLs wherever you want in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 Favorites menu. Try this: Choose Favorites and, when the menu opens, grab that new folder with the mouse and drag it to the top of the menu. When you release the mouse button, the folder will stay put in its new location.

GETTING A GOOD WEB PAGE PRINTOUT

"I sometimes need to print Web pages on a laser printer. Most of the time, this is no problem. But some Web pages use a dark background with light text. Such a page rarely looks good in print. Is there any way to reverse the printing of a page with light text, so the text appears in black and the background in white?"

It sounds like your Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 is set to print the background. Try this: Run Internet Explorer 4 and choose View, Internet Options. When the Internet Options dialog box opens, click the Advanced tab. Now, scroll down through the list to Printing. Deselect the Print Background Colors And Images check box and then click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection.

MOVE THE MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4 ADDRESS BAR

"I use the Links bar and always find it a pain because the Address bar gets in the way. If I move the Address bar up one space, it interferes with the toolbar (where all the buttons are located).

"I recently found the perfect place for the Address bar--drag it all the way to the top of the screen. The Address bar will fit perfectly to the right of the menus. In this position, you can see enough of the Address bar without having it interfere with anything else."

If you would like to try this, just run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and grab the Address bar with your mouse. Drag to the top right of the Internet Explorer 4 window and release the mouse button.

OPENING THE HARD DISK'S ROOT FOLDER IN MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4

"I don't know if most people are aware of this, but you can get to the root folder of your hard disk very quickly in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. All you have to do is type a backslash (\) into the Address bar and press Enter."

Let's say you are working in Internet Explorer 4 connected to the Internet. You quickly decide that you need to view the files in your hard disk's root folder to search for that oh-so-important document you were supposed to send to your boss. You can simply type a backslash in the Address bar and press Enter as described above. To return to the Web page you were viewing before you navigated to the hard disk, press Backspace or click the Internet Explorer 4 Back button.

OPENING PICTURES FILES IN MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4

"As you know, you can open GIF or JPG graphics files in Internet Explorer 4. You may not know that you can open a GIF or JPG file in Internet Explorer 4 just by dragging its icon to the Internet Explorer icon on your desktop."

Give this a try if you like. Place a JPG or GIF file on the desktop and then drag its icon to the Internet Explorer icon. When you release the mouse button, Internet Explorer 4 will open and display the picture.

This will also work when you use the Internet Explorer 4 icon in the Quick Launch tray. Just drag the picture icon over the Internet Explorer icon and release the mouse button.

USING KEYSTROKES TO ADD A SITE TO YOUR FAVORITES FOLDER

Is there an easy way to use keystrokes to add a Web page to the Favorites folder.

Yes, there certainly is. All you have to do is press Ctrl-D. This will add the current page to your Favorites folder with no questions asked. If you want to move the added URL to one of your subfolders later, you can choose Favorites, Organize Favorites and drag the new URL to an appropriate folder.

It doesn't get much easier than that, now does it?

RELOCATING THE TEMPORARY FOLDER

"I have a problem with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. Drive C is getting full, and I have a problem with the temporary folder. I have enough room on Drive D. Is it possible to get Internet Explorer 4 to use a temporary folder on Drive D rather than Drive C?"

There sure is. You can tell Internet Explorer 4 to relocate the temporary folder. But first, let's copy the old folder to your new location. Run Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows. In the right pane, locate the Temporary Internet Files folder and use the right mouse button to drag it to Drive D. When you release the mouse button, choose Copy Here from the menu.

Now, run Internet Explorer 4 and choose View, Internet Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the General tab. Next, under Temporary Internet Files, click Settings. When the Settings dialog box opens, click Move Folder. This will open a dialog box warning you that you will delete subscription content. Click Yes to continue. When the Browse For Folder dialog box opens, click your new folder (in Drive D), then click OK to close the dialog box and record your selection. You'll get a dialog box telling you to restart Windows.

Click OK, and then OK again to close the Settings and Internet Options dialog boxes. Restart the computer and run Internet Explorer 4. You'll find that all your temp files will now go to the new drive.

DISABLING THE MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4 CONTENT ADVISOR

"Here in my office we have several computers that are shared by many people. Some of these people often put a password into the Content Advisor in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. When they do this, other people can't use the Internet. Is there some way to keep people from fooling with Content Advisor?"

Yes, there is. You can make a change in the Registry that will disable any Content Advisor use.

Since the Registry key that requires changing doesn't exist in all installations, we wrote a REG file to add the key for you. Don't forget that messing with the Registry in any way can be dangerous. We don't guarantee that our REG file will do the job for you. So, proceed with caution.

To generate the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following. (Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter to enter a blank line. Do not type in BLANK LINE GOES HERE.)

REGEDIT4

BLANK LINE GOES HERE

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Control Panel]

"Ratings"=hex:FF,FF,FF,FF

BLANK LINE GOES HERE

Now, choose File, Save As. When the Save As dialog box opens, name the file Content.reg and locate a folder for the new file. Now, click Save to save the file and close the dialog box.

To use the new REG file, double-click its icon. When a dialog box opens asking if you are sure you want to add the information to the Registry, click Yes. Another dialog box will open informing you that the information has been merged. Click OK to close this dialog box and continue.

Now, restart the computer and then run Internet Explorer 4. Select View, Internet Options. When the Internet Options dialog box opens, click the Content tab. You should find that the Content Advisor buttons (Enable, Settings) are grayed out. Click Cancel to close the dialog box.

If you need to enable the buttons again, you can modify the REG file as shown here:

REGEDIT4

BLANK LINE GOES HERE

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Control Panel]

"Ratings"=hex:00,00,00,00

BLANK LINE GOES HERE

Name the new file Advisor.reg and save it. Now you will have two files--Content.reg to turn off the Content Advisor, and Advisor.reg to turn it back on. In both cases, you will need to restart the computer.

If this doesn't sound fun, you can always try threatening your co-workers--but of course, we don't recommend that.

WORKING WITH THE MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4 HISTORY FILES

"I thought the History files were retained by Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 for 20 days. But, if I close Internet Explorer 4 and then restart it, the Back button is not available. So, what happened to my 20-day history?"

Several readers have asked basically the same question over the past few months. The problem with the History files is a problem of perception only. The Back and Forward buttons only navigate to pages visited during the current session. When you close Internet Explorer 4 and open it again, the buttons are not available until you have visited a few pages in the current session. Fear not--this doesn't mean that the History files are gone. To get to the files, just click the History button on the Internet Explorer 4 toolbar.

PRESERVING SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT IN MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4

"I personalized the Microsoft Home page (http://home.microsoft.com/) and have been using it for several months. A few days ago, I cleaned out my Temporary Internet Files folder, and my home page reverted to the default.

"It seems obvious to me that deleting the temporary files caused the page to revert, but I don't see why. Can I delete the temporary files without messing up my personal settings on the Home page?"

As you have discovered, the information that determines what goes on your Home page is stored in the Temporary Internet Files folder. When you need to clear your temporary files, run Internet Explorer 4 and choose View, Internet Options. When the Internet Options dialog box opens, click the General tab (if necessary) and click Delete Files. When the Delete Files dialog box opens, make sure the Delete All Subscription Content check box is not selected and click OK. Back in Internet Options, click OK to close the dialog box. This will clean up your temporary files without deleting any cookies that may contain important information.

AN EASY WAY TO MAKE A COPY OF YOUR FAVORITES FOLDER

"Since a full Favorites folder often represents a lot of work, I decided to find an easy way to make sure I always have a fairly recent backup of the Favorites folder. To do this, I decided to write a simple batch file that will copy the folder to a floppy disk. Here is the batch file I use:

@echo off
xcopy c:\windows\favorites\ /s a:\Favorites /i

Once you have saved the batch file, you can place a shortcut to it on your desktop, or on the Quick Launch taskbar. All you have to do is put the backup floppy disk into Drive A and click the icon to back up your Favorites folder."

To create a batch file, run Notepad and enter the code as shown. When finished, choose File, Save As and name the file FavBack.bat (or any name of your choice as long as you use the BAT extension). Locate a folder for the new file and click Save to save the file, then close the Save As dialog box. Note that the file will always be available if you save it in the root folder (C:\).

As Susan says, you can now create a shortcut to the new file. To do this, run Windows Explorer and use the right mouse button to drag the file's icon to your desktop. When the menu opens, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here.

With the shortcut in place on your desktop, right-click it and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Program tab. Now, click the arrow at the right side of the Run list box to expand the list. Select Minimize and then select the Close On Exit check box. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your settings.

Now, you can double-click your new icon to copy your Favorites folder to a disk in Drive A. Since we told the program to run minimized, you won't see the MS-DOS screen when the program runs. You will see Drive A start, though.

TURNING OFF THE TASK SCHEDULER IN MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER

Here is a Microsoft Internet Explorer 4/Windows 98 question:

"A few months ago, I bought this computer with Windows 98 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 installed. I like Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 4, but I hate the Task Scheduler. Why are we forced to use this whether we like it or not?"

First of all, we're glad you are enjoying Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 4. You may enjoy them even more after we tell you how to turn off Task Scheduler. Double-click My Computer to open the window. Now, double-click the Scheduled Tasks folder to open it. When the Scheduled Tasks window opens, choose Advanced, Stop Using Task Scheduler. Now, press and hold down Shift while you click the Close box in the Scheduled Tasks window. This will close both Scheduled Tasks and My Computer.

At this point, you will no longer see the Task Scheduler icon in the Windows 98 taskbar.

LOCATING A COPY OF REAL PLAYER ON THE INTERNET

"I am rather new to the Internet and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. I have been told that there is a program that will let you listen to sound files in real time. Can you tell me where to find this program?"

The program you need is Real Player. Using Real Player, you can listen to live music and radio broadcasts on the Internet. To get your copy, go to

http://www.pcworld.com/r/tw/1%2C2061%2Ctw-msie40727%2C00.html

BACKING UP YOUR REGISTRY

We have often commented that making a change in your Registry is potentially dangerous. The best way to guard against problems is to always make a backup of your Registry files before you run RegEdit or double-click that REG file.

You can make a backup manually using Windows Explorer. Just run Explorer and navigate to \Windows. Locate System.dat and copy it to a new folder or disk (Drive A, if you wish). Now, still in \Windows, find User.dat and copy it to the same location as System.dat.

If you would prefer, you can download a Microsoft program that will back up the Registry files for you. Go to

http://www.pcworld.com/r/tw/1%2C2061%2Ctw-ie40730%2C00.html

and download the Microsoft Configuration Backup utility. This program makes it easy to keep a current Registry backup.

TURNING OFF THE MODEM SPEAKER

"I know this isn't a strictly Internet Explorer 4 question, but can you tell me how to turn off the modem speaker? The sound of dialing and connecting drives me crazy. I have even been thinking of removing the speaker from the modem. I turned the speaker volume to zero in Control Panel and it did absolutely nothing."

Repress those violent urges, Elliot, and try not to rip out the speaker--that isn't necessary. To shut off the speaker, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the Modems icon. When the Modems dialog box opens, click Properties. In the Properties dialog box, select the Connection tab and click Advanced. When the Advanced Connection Settings dialog box opens, type

ATM0
in the Extra Settings box (that's a zero at the end). Now, click OK to close the dialog box and save the settings. Click OK again to close the Properties dialog box. You can now close Control Panel and test your new settings. Since the command ATM0 tells the modem to set the speaker to zero, you should no longer hear the modem dialing sounds. And that, my friend, will avoid any unnecessary physical damage to your computer!

DELETING YOUR MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4 HISTORY FILES

"I recently tried to delete the contents of the History folder using Windows Explorer. I used Ctrl-A to select all the files and then pressed Delete. All I got was a system beep. No files were deleted at all.

"Then, I selected the History folder and chose File, Delete. I got a dialog box telling me that the folder is a system folder and asking if I really wanted to delete it. I clicked Yes and got another dialog box telling me that you can't delete the folder.

"Does all of this make sense, or is there something odd about my installation?"

It all makes perfect sense--to your computer, anyway. Just as the dialog boxes say, History is a system folder. Although you could delete the folder using MS-DOS, we recommend that you not do so. If all you want to do is empty the folder, run Internet Explorer 4 and choose View, Internet Options. When the Internet Options dialog box opens, click the General tab. Now, click Clear History. This is the best and safest way to clear the contents of the History folder.

So, what would happen if you did manage to delete the History folder? Windows would simply create a new one for you. Although you may not do any permanent damage deleting the folder, you have nothing to gain--that is, unless you simply enjoy deleting files.

A MICROSOFT GRAPHICS PAGE

We recently published a tip in response to reader Jane F.'s question about Microsoft sites that contain graphics for use in Web pages. As reader Nick I. points out, we missed an important site. We suggested

http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp

and forgot to mention the Microsoft Clip Gallery Live site at

http://cgl.microsoft.com/clipgallerylive/

Thanks for pointing out the oversight, Nick. As you say, there is a considerable amount of clip art available at this site.

OPENING A WEB PAGE IN A NEW WINDOW

"Whenever I select a URL from my Favorites, it loads in the current browser window. This is annoying when one is threading through information. If I don't want to lose my current window, I have to duplicate it and only select a new URL from my Favorites. Is there a way to force a new window?"

Although you can open a link in a new window by holding down Shift while you click the link, this technique doesn't work with URLs in the Favorites folder.

One trick is to make a shortcut to your Favorites folder on the Quick Launch toolbar. You can hold down Shift to open a URL in a new window.

If you decide to use this method, be careful how you use the Shift key. The best approach is to click the URL once, then press Shift and double-click. Good luck!

MOVING BETWEEN FRAMES IN MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4

"Is there an easy way to move between frames in Internet Explorer 4? I mean other than using the mouse to click in a new frame."

There sure is--you can move to the next frame by pressing Ctrl-Tab. If you keep pressing Ctrl-Tab, it will move you through all the frames and then select the Address bar and the Links bar.

USING THE INTERNET EXPLORER 4 ADDRESS BAR IN FULL SCREEN VIEW

"I like the full screen view when using Internet Explorer 4, so I set mine up to always open in full screen view. The only thing I really miss is the Address bar. Is there any way to use full screen view and still have the Address bar?"

Yes, you can still use the Address bar in full screen view. You just can't place it below the toolbar as you can in the normal view.

To get your Address bar back, right-click the toolbar and choose Address Bar. That's all there is to it.

Note that you can also add the Links and Menu bars. But they must all go into the single toolbar--just keep in mind things could begin to get crowded if you add them all.

CREATING A MY COMPUTER TOOLBAR

"I initially tried putting My Computer into the taskbar but decided it required too much space. I then accidentally discovered that you could drag the entire My Computer toolbar to the right side of the screen. This is where I use it now, because it doesn't take up space needed for my folder icons."

You can drag the toolbar to the right, left, or top of the screen if you wish. Just grab the toolbar with the mouse and move it to the new location.

To create a My Computer toolbar, right-click the taskbar and choose Toolbars, New Toolbar. When the New Toolbar dialog box opens, click My Computer to select it and then click OK. It's that simple!

CHOOSING A NEW INTERNET EXPLORER 4 SEARCH ENGINE

"If you use Windows 98, you can install Tweak UI and use it to choose a new automatic search engine. You'll find this option on Tweak UI's General page under Internet Explorer."

For those of you with Windows 98, here is how to install Tweak UI. Insert the Windows 98 CD into the CD-ROM drive. When the opening dialog box appears, click Browse This CD. Now, double-click the Tools folder and then double-click the Reskit folder. Next, double-click the Powertoy folder. Finally, right-click Tweakui.inf and choose Install. After Tweak UI installs, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the Tweak UI icon. When the Tweak UI dialog box opens, click the General tab. Now, click the arrow to the right of the Search Engine list box and select a search engine that you would like to use. Click OK to close the dialog box and apply the new setting. The next time you run Internet Explorer 4, you can use your new search engine. Just go to the Address bar and type

? (Space) [your search word]
For example, if you want to search for new automobiles, you would type

? automobiles
and press Enter. IE 4 will use your newly selected search engine to locate occurrences of automobiles.

Tweak UI will do much more than this, so take some time to look through its pages.

ADDING A HIDDEN FOLDER TO FAVORITES

"I run several computer labs at the high school where I teach and use one of the computers for personal browsing. None of my bookmarks have sensitive material or links, but I feel my favorites are My Favorites and should remain so. I wonder if there is way to hide the Favorites folder from other teachers who occasionally use my machine for research. Or is it possible to block access to that folder? What would you recommend, other than not use a machine at work for personal browsing?"

There's no easy way to handle this problem. Whatever makes a folder difficult for others to see will also make the folder difficult for you to use. However, you could create a hidden folder inside the Favorites folder. This folder won't appear at all if your system doesn't display hidden files.

To check on this, open any window and choose View, Folder Options. When the Folder Options dialog box opens, click the View tab. Now, select the Do Not Show Hidden Files option; then, click OK to close the dialog box and record your settings.

Now, let's create the folder. Run Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\Favorites. Right-click in the right pane and choose New, Folder. Name the new folder MyStuff and press Enter. Now, right-click the new folder and choose Properties. When the dialog box opens, click the General tab (if necessary) and select the Hidden check box. Alternatively, you can select the Do Not Show Hidden Or System Files option. Now, click OK to close the dialog box and save your settings.

Run Internet Explorer 4 and choose Favorites. You'll find that the new folder doesn't appear. So, how do you add pages to the folder? Well, you can't add them directly. What you can do is add them to the folder you have been using--perhaps a folder named Jeff. When you finish the session, type in the Address bar

c:\windows\favorites\mystuff
and press Enter. Your new folder will now appear in the browser. Next, choose Favorites, Organize Favorites. When the Organize Favorites window opens, you can press Ctrl-A, right-click, and choose Move Here from the shortcut menu to drag all the files from your visible folder to your invisible folder.

To access your folder when you want to visit a page, type

c:\windows\favorites\mystuff
in the Address bar and press Enter. You can now click any site you wish to visit.

SETTING THE MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 4 DOWNLOAD FOLDER

This is another of those questions that appear on a regular basis: How do you set the download folder so that all downloads automatically are sent to that folder?

The easiest and best way to set the download folder is to just choose a folder the first time you download something.

Let's say that you create a folder named Downloads, and you want all your downloaded files to go into that folder. Just run Internet Explorer 4 and locate a file to download. Here's a download suggestion--go to

http://www.pcworld.com/fileworld/file_description/0,1458,4331,00.html

and download Wow256.zip. When you click this file, you'll be sent to a new page. On this page, click the link Download File Now! link. When the File Download dialog box opens, select the Save This File To Disk option and click OK. Now, the Save As dialog will open. Locate your Downloads folder and double-click to accept it. Then, click Save to start your download and close the dialog box.

>From this point on, Internet Explorer 4 will default to this folder selection. You don't have to edit the Registry or make any changes to your system at all.

MORE ON PLACING A HIDDEN FOLDER IN FAVORITES

In our previous tip, we described a method you can use to place a hidden folder inside the Favorites folder. This works well, provided no one changes the View settings.

Suppose you create a hidden folder, then someone comes along and chooses View, Folder Options, View and selects the Show All Files option. Your folder still wouldn't appear when you choose Favorites in Internet Explorer 4. However, the folder would show up when you choose Favorites, Organize Favorites.

So, here is another approach to the problem of folder security. Suppose you create a new folder at a new location. Run Windows Explorer and go to C:\Program Files. When Program Files opens, move to the right pane and right-click. Choose New, Folder and name the new folder MyStuff.

Now, close Windows Explorer and open Internet Explorer 4. Choose Favorites, Organize Favorites. When the window opens, you can click the site you want to visit. You can add sites to the new folder just as described before--place them in a visible folder first, then go to the Address bar, type

C:\Program Files\MyStuff
and press Enter. Now, choose Favorites, Organize Favorites and move your URLs to the new folder.

TURNING OFF THE SOUND YOU GET WHEN YOU CLICK A LINK IN INTERNET EXPLORER 4

"Is there any way to turn off that sound you get when you click a link in Internet Explorer 4? I would very much like to learn how to live without this annoying sound. I have looked everywhere in Internet Explorer 4, and I can't find a way to turn off that sound."

You can't turn it off in Internet Explorer 4, but you should be able to turn off the sound in Windows 95/98. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the Sounds icon. When the Sounds Properties dialog box opens, scroll down through the list and locate Start Navigation. You'll find this item under Windows Explorer. Click the item to select it and then click the Name drop-down arrow. In the list, select None (it's the very first item in the list). Then, click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. You can now close Control Panel by clicking its close box (the X in the upper-right corner).

The next time you run Internet Explorer 4, you should hear no sound when you click a link.

A FLOATING QUICK LAUNCH TOOLBAR?

"I was told that it is possible to create a floating Quick Launch toolbar. Is this true? I have looked for a way to do this and have found nothing."

You can indeed turn the Quick Launch toolbar into a floating toolbar. Simply grab the toolbar at the very left side (next to the Start button) and drag upward. If you grab the toolbar in the right place, it will move out onto the desktop as a floating toolbar.

By the way, you can also use this method to change the location of your Quick Launch toolbar. If you don't like its default position next to the Start button, drag it out to the desktop and then drag it back to the taskbar in a new location.

SILENCING YOUR MODEM

We recently suggested a way to shut off the modem speaker when dialing. Several readers have asked about using the command when other commands already exist.

Let's start from the beginning. If you want to shut off the modem speaker, and nothing else has worked, you can enter a command to turn off the speaker. To do this, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the Modem icon. In the Modem Properties dialog box, click Properties and then use the slider to set the speaker volume to Off. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. If this works, you're finished.

In some cases, this method doesn't work. If you are in this situation, double-click Modems again and then click Properties. Now, click the Connection tab. Next, click Advanced and then click in the Extra Settings entry box. Enter

atm0
to turn off the speaker. If an AT command is already present, add M0 to the end of the command. If you need to add another command, say S11=55 to speed up dialing, add it to the end of the AT command string. For example, you could use

atm0 e1 s11=55
Whatever your command string, click OK once it is entered. Back in Properties, click OK, and then click Close when you get back to the Modems Properties dialog box.

Also, several readers reported that the modem no longer worked after they entered the command string. The only way we could get the modem to fail was to enter ATMO (the letter O), rather than ATM0 (the number zero). If you experienced a modem problem, check to make sure you entered zero. Did you get all that?

CLOSING POP-UP WINDOWS

"I use Windows 98 and MSIE4. Often, when I browse the Internet, I end up with five or more pop-up windows getting opened. If I don't close them as soon as they open, then I have to close each one after I close MSIE4. Is there any way to close all these windows at once?"

Yes, there sure is. You can click one of the windows in the taskbar, then hold down Ctrl while you click the others. This should select all the windows you want to close. Now, release the Ctrl key and right-click one of the selected window icons. Choose Close, and all the selected windows will close.

A SEARCH ENGINE PAGE

"When I first got on the Internet a few years ago, I used a search engine page called AllinOne. This was a whole page of search engines. I found this page extremely useful, but I lost it somewhere along the line, during an upgrade. Does AllinOne still exist? If so, can you tell me where to find it?"

Yes, it does still exist. It's called the All-in-One Search Page. You will find it at

http://www.allonesearch.com

If you would like to have this page readily available when you're in MSIE4, you can use the mouse to drag it to the Links bar. Just grab the icon to the left of the address and drag it over the Links bar. Release the mouse button and you'll have your search engine collection in a handy spot.

CHANGING A LINK'S ICON

"I drag some of my most often used URLs to the Links bar. The problem is that all the icons are the same. Is there a way to change a link's icon?"

There certainly is. To change a link's icon, run MSIE4 and right-click the link you want to change. When the menu is open, choose Properties. In the Properties dialog box, click Internet Shortcut (if necessary). Now, click Change Icon. When the Change Icon dialog box opens, select a new icon and click OK. If you don't see an icon you like, click Browse.

Now, locate the icon you want to use and double-click it to close the dialog box. When you get back to the Change Icon dialog box, click OK. In the Properties dialog box, click OK to save your changes and dismiss the dialog box. The new icon will appear the next time you run Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.

REMOVING ADVERTISEMENTS FROM WEB PAGES

There is an easy way to eliminate those pop-up ads that have become increasingly popular on the Internet. We often get this question, and we suggest that you download and install AdsOff. You'll find it at

http://www.pcworld.com/fileworld/file_description/0,1458,6182,00.html

AdsOff works fine with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. You can register this shareware utility for $15.95. That's well worth the cost, don't you think?

RELOCATING THE MSIE4 ADDRESS BAR

"You recently ran a tip about placing the Address Bar up in the menu bar. I suspect this tip is mistaken. I do not see a way to move the Address Bar to the menu bar. Could you explain what I might be doing wrong?"

We can't explain what you might be doing wrong, but we can run through the instructions again. To move the Address Bar to the menu bar, simply move the mouse pointer over the left side of the Address Bar--right over the word Address. Now, press and hold down the mouse button while you drag the Address Bar up to the menu bar. When you reach the menu bar, release the mouse button. The Address will anchor itself in the new location.

Now, move the mouse pointer over the left side of the Address Bar. When the pointer turns into a horizontal double arrow, hold down the mouse button and drag to the right (or left) to size the Address Bar so you can read the addresses and still see all the menu items. Good luck!

PUTTING DRIVE ICONS INTO QUICK LAUNCH

"Since we have the Quick Launch bar with MSIE4, I decided that would be a good place to keep shortcuts to my floppy disk drive and my CD-ROM drive.

"This is no problem to do. All you have to do is open My Computer, then click drive A:. Now, press Ctrl and click your CD-ROM icon. Next, drag them both to the Quick Launch bar and release the mouse button. You'll get a dialog box asking if you want to create a shortcut. Click Yes to continue.

"Now, you can easily access your CD-ROM or a floppy disk from the Windows 95/98 taskbar."

ADDING PROGRAMS TO THE MSIE4 LINKS BAR

"Is there any way to add programs to the Links bar? I know I can open Notepad from the Start menu, but it would be so much easier if I could just click an icon on the Links bar."

You can add almost anything to the Links bar. Since Notepad is what you want, let's look at how to add Notepad.

Run MSIE4 and choose Favorites, Organize Favorites. When the Favorites window opens, double-click Links. Now, right-click in the Links window and choose New, Shortcut. This opens the Create Shortcut wizard. Click Browse and navigate to C:\Windows. Next, find notepad.exe and double-click its icon to close the Browse dialog box and set your command line to Notepad. Click Next to continue. Now, type a name for the new shortcut--Notepad--minus the EXE part--should do fine. Click Finish to complete your new shortcut. Back in the Organize Favorites window, click Close.

You will now have the Notepad icon in your Links bar, ready for quick use.

USING AN HTML SCREEN WITH ACTIVE DESKTOP

"I now use Windows 98 with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and with Active Desktop. I have finished a Web page in FrontPage Express that I would like to use. I created links to all the files and folders I need, and now I would like to get rid of all the standard desktop folders. I know this is possible, but I don't know how to do it. Could you cover this topic?"

To use a Web page as your desktop, you'll need to activate the Active Desktop. To do this, right-click the desktop and choose Active Desktop, View As Web Page. Right-click the desktop again and choose Properties. When the Display Properties dialog box opens, click the Background tab and select your new page. If it isn't in the current list, click Browse and locate the file. Double-click its icon to set your new background.

To eliminate the standard desktop icons, click the Effects tab. Now, select the check box labeled "Hide icons when the desktop is viewed as a Web page" and then click OK to close the Display Properties dialog box and apply your selections.

At this point, the only thing you will see on your desktop is what you added to your Web page.

USING A MODEM WITH TELEPHONE MESSAGE SYSTEMS

"A few months ago, I signed up with the phone company for a message system. Shortly after the message system was installed, I began having trouble dialing my ISP to get on the Internet. I finally discovered that the trouble occurred only when I had active messages.

"When you have messages pending, the dial tone is broken up to indicate that messages are present (at least, this happens on my phone system). This broken dial tone apparently confuses the modem. I found that if I clear all the messages before I try to use the Internet, I
have no problems. I thought I should pass this along, since other people may have a similar problem."

Correct, the broken dial tone does confuse the modem. As you say, you can clear all your messages first and avoid the problem. However, if you would rather not have to always check your messages, you can add some delay to the modem dialing to take care of the broken
dial tone problem.

To do this, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the Modems icon. In the Modems dialog box, click your modem to select it. Now, click Dialing Properties. Under To Access An Outside Line, add three commas to both entry boxes and click OK. This tells the modem to delay before dialing--each comma adds one second. Next, click Properties and click the Connection tab. Deselect the check box labeled "Wait for dial tone before dialing" and then click OK. Back in Modems, click Close to close the dialog box.

Now, with three commas inserted, the modem will wait for three seconds before attempting to dial. If this isn't enough time for your system, try adding another comma to get a four-second delay.

CHECKING YOUR MODEM

"When I try to connect using Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, I get a message telling me the modem isn't working. I installed the modem only a few weeks ago, and it worked at first. Is there some way to test the modem?"

First double-click My Computer and then double-click Dial-Up Networking. Next double-click the Connection icon and click Connect. If your modem works and you successfully connect to your ISP, you need to check IE 4 to make sure you told it to use the correct connection.

If you can't connect using the Connection dialog box, you might have a modem problem, or you may have set your connection to an incorrect ISP (perhaps an earlier one).

To see if your modem is responding, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When the Control Panel opens, double-click the Modems icon. Now click the Diagnostics tab in the Modems Properties dialog box. Click your modem entry to select it, then click More Info. If all is well,
the program reports the modem parameters.

If your modem is OK, you may have told IE 4 to use the wrong modem (perhaps a modem you had installed previously).

If all else fails, reinstall your modem software. Good luck!

OPENING THE QUICK LAUNCH WINDOW

"When you want to make changes to items in the Quick Launch toolbar,
all you have to do is right-click a blank spot in Quick Launch and
choose Open. This opens the Quick Launch window. You can make your
changes and then choose File, Close to close the window."

WORKING WITH THE WINDOWS EXPLORER SETTINGS

"I changed the Windows Explorer settings to List, then I chose View, Folder Options. When the Folder Options dialog box opened, I clicked the View tab and then clicked Like Current Folder. Now all my folders open in List view. Is this normal?"

Yes, it is. When you click Like Current Folder, all the folders in your installation take on the settings you choose in any single folder. If you set the Windows Explorer to list without clicking Like Current Folder, you can have other folders open in a different view.

GETTING MORE INFORMATION IN THE IE 4 HISTORY PANE

"When you click History to look for a previously visited site, the History pane is often so small that you can't tell exactly which site is which. You could use the mouse to make the History pane larger, but this isn't really necessary. If you simply move the mouse pointer over an item in the History folder, a tool tip opens and displays all the information you would see on the line if you resized the pane."

Something to keep in mind--you can only set the History pane's size to half the window size, which means you may still have to depend on the tool tips to see an entire line.

SUBSCRIBING TO A SITE IN MSIE 4

"How much of a problem is it to subscribe to a Web site? I see comments about subscribing all the time, but I have never seen an explanation of how to do it."

It's fairly easy to subscribe to a site. Let's say you would like to subscribe to PCWorld.com--smart choice. Choose Favorites, then locate your PCWorld URL. Right-click the URL and choose Subscribe.

When the Subscribe Favorite dialog box opens, you can select either "Only tell me when this page is updated" or "Notify me of updates and download the page for offline viewing".

If you click Customize, IE 4 opens the Subscription Wizard. Make your selections and click Next. Note that you can also elect to have the selected site send you an e-mail message when there are updates.

PRINTING HEADER NOTES IN IE 4

"I sometimes need to print a Web page. I was wondering if there is a way that I can get MSIE 4 to print personal notes in the header of footer when I print a page. This would help me file these printed pages. Can you help?"

Yes, we sure can. You can put personal notes into the header (or footer). Run IE 4 and navigate to a Web page. Now choose File, Page Setup. When the Page Setup dialog box opens, you will see entry boxes for both the header and footer.

Just click in the entry box and add your note there. If the note is all you want to appear, delete the default entry and type it. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your additions.

Your changes remain in effect until you change them. Therefore, you need to change your note for each Web page you want to print.

ELIMINATING LOGOFF FROM THE START MENU

"I just installed MSIE 4 a few weeks ago and there is a Logoff Eben command in the Start menu. Is there some way to get rid of this command?"

This is another of those questions we see on a regular basis. In order to help all of you who want to get rid of the Logoff command, we have written a short REG file. Please remember that we can't guarantee any REG file will do exactly what you expect. Use REG files at your own risk.

To write the REG file, run Notepad and enter the following as shown here. Where you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter. Whatever you do, don't type BLANK LINE GOES HERE--you won't like the results.

REGEDIT4
BLANK LINE GOES HERE
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoLogOff"=dword:00000001
BLANK LINE GOES HERE

Now choose File, Save As and name the file NoLogOff.reg. Locate a folder for your new file and click Save.

To use the new file, double-click its icon. When asked if you're sure you want to enter the information into the Registry, click Yes. The next time you start the computer, the Logoff command will not appear. Good luck!

PUTTING URLS INTO THE QUICK LAUNCH TOOLBAR

"I have never seen anyone mention the fact that you can drag a URL to the Quick Launch toolbar. I do this all the time when I am doing research on the Web. After I finish with all the URLs, I right-click them and choose Delete.

"All you have to do to put the current Web page into the toolbar is drag the Address icon to the Quick Launch toolbar."

PUTTING A SUBSCRIPTIONS FOLDER INTO THE START MENU

"I like to have all my subscribed sites readily available, so I decided I needed to have a Subscriptions folder in the Windows 98 Start menu. I searched for a way to do this for several months, and finally found one.

"If you right-click Start and choose Open, the Start menu window opens. Right-click the window and choose New, Folder. Now name the folder

Subscriptions.{F5175861-2688-11d0-9C5E-00AA00A45957}

and the new folder will appear in the Start menu."

You may find it easier to copy the folder name shown above and paste it into the new folder's name.

DELETING THE MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER IN FAVORITES

"I would like to remove the My Documents folder from the Favorites folder. If I delete this folder, will I also be deleting it from the hard disk? I am afraid to try doing so because a lot of my programs use it."

Delete away. When you delete My Documents from the Favorites folder, you will not affect the original My Documents folder in any way.

To delete the folder, just choose Favorites, then right-click My Documents and choose Delete.

DELETING THE MY DOCUMEVIEWING NEWSGROUP PICTURES IN THE OUTLOOK
EXPRESS PREVINTS FOLDER IN FAVORITES

"When I installed MSIE 4 and Outlook Express last year, all the pictures that appeared in newsgroups showed up in the Preview pane. Now, for some reason, the pictures no longer appear in the Preview pane. I have to click the attachment icon and view the pictures in the
IE 4 browser. Do you have any idea why the Preview pane might have stopped displaying the pictures?"

Our guess is that someone has deselected the option to show the pictures. To get this option set again, Run Outlook Express and choose Tools, Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Read tab. Next, select the check box labeled "Automatically show picture
attachments in messages". Click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection.

The next time you enter a newsgroup with Outlook Express, any pictures in the messages should appear in the Preview pane again. Good luck!

UNINSTALLING THE INTERNET EXPLORER SOUND PACK

"I installed the Internet Explorer Sound Pack and now I would like to uninstall it. I went to the Control Panel and opened Add/Remove Programs. There is no listing for the sound pack. Is there some way to get rid of the sounds I get every time I navigate to a new site?"

As you have already discovered, you can't actually uninstall the sound pack. However, what you can do is turn off the sounds. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When the Control Panel opens, double-click the Sounds icon. Next, scroll through the Event list and locate Windows Explorer. Click Complete Navigation, then click the arrow at the right side of the Name list box. Select None and then click Start Navigation from the Events list. Set this to None, then click OK to close the dialog box and save your selections. You can also close the Control Panel now (choose File, Close).

OPENING THE QUICK LAUNCH FOLDER

"I always found it a pain to use Windows Explorer to open the Quick Launch folder when I needed to make some changes. I just discovered you can open the folder without all that fuss. All you have to do is right-click a blank spot in the Quick Launch bar and choose Open. This
opens the folder, and you can do whatever you want."

The only requirement for this is to make sure you click a blank spot. If you can't find a blank spot, grab the divider line to the right of the Quick Launch area and drag it to the right with your mouse. This will leave a blank area to the right of your last Quick Launch button.

BACKING UP YOUR ISP INFORMATION

"Is there some way to make a backup of the information you have to enter to connect to your ISP? I printed it out, but then lost it. I had to call the ISP and get it to talk me through the process again."

Yes, you can make a backup and avoid any more ISP inconveniences . You will need to use RegEdit, but you should have no problems as long as you don't make any changes to the Registry. To make the backup, choose Start, Run, type

regedit

and press Enter. When RegEdit opens, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\RemoteAccess. Click RemoteAccess to select it, then choose Registry, Export Registry File. When the Export Registry File dialog box appears, name your file ISP. Next, choose a location for your new file and click Save. Close the Save As dialog box. To close RegEdit, choose Registry, Exit.

To restore your ISP settings, all you have to do is double-click ISP.reg and Windows will merge the file with the Registry. Note: This does not save any of your passwords. However, it will save the stuff you need to call the ISP about.

REMOVING IE 4 FAVORITES

"Netscape makes editing bookmarks easy, but is there an easy way to remove unwanted entries from the Internet Explorer 4 Favorites list?"

There are two ways to delete URLs in IE 4--you can delete them directly from the menu, or you can choose Favorites, Organize Favorites to open the Organize Favorites window. You can now double-click any folder to open it. To delete a listing, click it and press Delete. To delete a listing from the Favorites menu, just right-click the item and choose Delete.

If you need to delete more than one listing, it's easiest to open the Organize Favorites window, click the item you want to delete, then press Delete. When you want to delete more than one item at a time, click the first one, then hold down Ctrl while you click the others. After you select all the items you want to delete, press Delete.

HIDE LINKS BUTTONS

"I had decided to save some of my links in a separate folder to trim the size of the Links bar without losing any URLs. While fooling around with this idea, I discovered that one can simply hide currently unneeded links.

"To do this, right-click the link you want to hide and choose Properties. When the dialog box opens, click the General tab and then select the Hidden check box (under Attributes). Click OK to close the dialog box and record your selections.

"The next time you run Internet Explorer 4, the hidden URL will not appear in the Links bar.

"When you decide to use those hidden links again, you will need to make sure you have your folder view set to view hidden files. Otherwise, you can't see the files to change their attributes. To so this, run Windows Explorer and choose View, Folder Options. When the Folder Options dialog box opens, click the View tab. Now, in the Hidden Files folder, select the Show All Files radio button and click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection.

"Now you can run IE 4 and choose Favorites, Organize Favorites. When the Organize Favorites window opens, double-click the Links folder to open it. Right-click the URL you want to unhide and choose Properties. When the dialog box opens, click the General tab and then deselect the Hidden check box. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes."

HOW TO TELL IF YOU HAVE 128-BIT SECURITY

"Is there any easy way to tell if my Internet Explorer 4 is the 128-bit version?"

Run Internet Explorer 4 and choose Help, About Internet Explorer. When the dialog box opens, you will see Cipher Strength: 128 Bit if your system has the 128-bit update installed.

This update is available only to IE 4 users in the United States and Canada.

SORTING QUICK LAUNCH ITEMS

Several readers have suggested placing numbers before items in the Quick Launch folder as a means of sorting the items. You can certainly do this if you wish. Here's another way to get the same results that may tickle your fancy:

Sort Quick Launch entries by using the mouse to drag them where you want. For example, if you would prefer to have Outlook Express as your first icon, just grab it with the mouse and drag it to the first position in the Quick Launch bar.

SETTING THE SOUND SYSTEM VOLUME

"I find that I often need to change the sound system volume as I navigate through the Internet. Some sites have very loud audio, and others are not loud enough. The way I have my system set up, it is inconvenient to reach the speaker volume control, so I have been double-clicking the Speaker icon in the taskbar to set the volume. I just now discovered that you don't have to open the Volume Control dialog box to set the volume--all you have to do is click the Speaker icon once to open the master volume control. Using this method, it is very easy to change the volume as you surf the Internet."

ACCESSING ADDRESSES IN IE 4

"Sometimes you may need to go back to one of the addresses stored in the Address Box list in Internet Explorer 4. Of course, you can click the arrow at the right side of the Address Box to expand the list and then select a URL.

"You can also simply press F4 to open the list. I find this easier than using the pesky mouse to open the list. Also, you can select an address from the list by pressing the down arrow until you reach the URL you want. Then you press Enter to navigate to the selected site."

SEPARATING YOUR QUICK LAUNCH ITEMS

Here is a Quick Launch tip: "I have quite a few icons in my Quick Launch toolbar, so I decided to make some dividers to separate the icons into groups. Here is how I did it.

"An important first step is to create the divider icon. To do this, run Paint and choose Image, Attributes. Set both width and height to 16 and click OK. Now choose View, Zoom, Custom and select the 800% radio button. Click OK to close the dialog box and apply your view
selection.

"Now choose File, Save As. When the Save As dialog box opens, name the file Divider and then click the arrow at the right side of the Save As Type list box. When the list expands, select 16 Color Bitmap (*.bmp, *.dib) and then select a folder for your new icon (I saved mine in c:\Windows). Click Save to save the icon and close the Save As dialog box.

"Next, you can draw your divider. I used a thick (two lines) dark gray line down the center of the icon. On the left side of the dark line, I drew a single lighter gray line. This produces a 3-D icon. With your icon drawn, choose File, Save.

"To use the icon in your Quick Launch bar, right-click a blank spot in Quick Launch and choose Open. Now right-click the Quick Launch window and choose New, Text Document. In the document, enter

[Shell]
IconFile=c:\Windows\Divide.bmp

and choose File, Save As. When the Save As dialog box opens, name the file divide.scf and click Save. Now you can delete the no longer needed New Text Document.txt.

"At this point, the new icon will appear in your Quick Launch bar. To make more than one divider, simply right-click the icon and choose Create Shortcut. You can drag the new icons around to place them."

GETTING THE CORRECT CONNECTION SPEED

"When I am connected to the Internet, I move the mouse pointer over the connection icon in the taskbar to check my connection speed. When I first installed the modem, the speed was usually 48,000 to 55,000 bps. Now the speed is always 11,5000. I believe this is the speed at which the computer communicates with the modem. I know that I can't be connecting at this speed.

"Have you ever seen this happen? Is there a way to get an accurate connection-speed readout again?"

Yes, there is. There are two possibilities--you may somehow have used an incorrect driver, or your INIT string may be incorrect. If you think the driver is incorrect, you need to contact the manufacturer. If you can locate the manufacturer's site on the Internet, you may then be able to download a new driver.

To add the correct INIT string, check your modem's documentation or check with the manufacturer.

To change an INIT string, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click the Modems icon. Now click Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Connection tab and then click Advanced. Click the Extra Settings entry box and add your new INIT string. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your new INIT string. This will take you back to the Properties dialog box, where you should click OK again to save your settings and close the dialog box. Click Close in Modems Properties to close the dialog box.

We use a U.S. Robotics Sportster Internal, and the string AT&F1 takes care of the connection-speed display problem. Unfortunately, we do not know the correct string for other modems. Good luck!

CHANGING THE DIALING SPEED

Here is another modem question. "The computer I use at work dials much faster than the one at home. My modem seems to dial the ISP number very slowly. Is this a function of the type of modem I use, or is there a setting in DialUp networking that I can change to get a faster dial?"

You can tell your modem how fast to dial, assuming that it uses the standard Hayes commands. To change the dial speed, click Start, Settings, Control Panel. In Control Panel, double-click the Modems icon. When the dialog box opens, click the Connection tab and then
click Advanced. Click the Extra Settings entry box and add S11=40 to the existing INIT string. If there is no INIT string and you have no reason to add one, simply type

S11=55

and click OK. Back in the Properties dialog box, click OK again to save your settings and close the dialog box. In Modems Properties, click Close to dismiss the dialog box.

ASK ABOUT DOWNLOADS

"When I was downloading a file, in the File Download dialog box, I deselected the check box labeled 'Always ask before opening this type of file'. Now all the files I click download to the Temporary folder. Is there a way to get that dialog box back?"

We get numerous questions on this topic, so we wrote a REG file to reactivate the File Download dialog box. Note that modifying the Registry always carries a risk of creating software problems.

That being said, if you want to try this REG file, run Notepad and enter the following exactly as shown here, with one exception--when you see BLANK LINE GOES HERE, press Enter--don't type in BLANK LINE GOES HERE.

REGEDIT4
BLANK LINE GOES HERE
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile]
@="Application"
"EditFlags"=hex:D8,07,00,00
BLANK LINE GOES HERE

Now, choose File, Save As. Name the new file DownLoad.reg and locate a folder for the file. Click Save to save the file and close the Save As dialog box. You can now double-click your new file's icon to merge it with the Registry.

Restart the computer and run IE 4. You should get your File Download dialog box again.

Note: Some users have reported this method does not work for them. It works fine for our installation, which is 4.72.3612.1713 with SP2.

Good luck!

ELIMINATING THE UNDERLINING WITH ACTIVE DESKTOP

"I like using the single-click feature with Active Desktop. However, I don't like the underlining that appears with all the icon names on the desktop. What I really would like is to keep the single-click feature, but lose the underlining. Is this possible?"

It sure is-- you can get rid of the underlining. To turn off that icon underlining, open Internet Explorer 4 and choose View, Internet Options. When the Internet Options dialog box opens, click the Advanced tab. Now scroll through the list of options and locate Underline Links. Here you'll find three radio buttons labeled Always, Never, and Hover. If you don't want any underlining, select Never.

Click OK to close the dialog box and save your new selection.

INSTALLING IE 4 WITH WINDOWS 98 SE

"I just installed Windows 98 Second Edition on my computer and it also installed Internet Explorer 5. I would prefer to use IE 4. How can I get rid of IE 5 and go back to IE 4?"

As far as we can tell, you can't run IE 4 in Windows 98 SE. This product requires the IE 5 core files.

The only way to get IE 4 back is to reinstall your original version of Windows 98. If you decide to do this, you can go to the Microsoft site and download the bug fixes that go into Windows 98 SE. Of course, you won't get the added features. Good luck!

DON'T DISCONNECT AFTER CLOSING IE 4

"When I close Internet Explorer 4, I get a dialog box asking if I want to disconnect. Ordinarily, I don't want to disconnect. Is there a way to turn off this dialog box?"

We usually hear from people who want to get the disconnect dialog box back again. Run IE 4 and choose View, Internet Options. When the dialog box opens, click the Connection tab. Now, click Settings and select the check box labeled "Disconnect if idle for" and enter a time
in the spin box. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your selection. Click OK in Internet Options to dismiss the dialog box.

SETTING UP IE 4 WITHOUT RUNNING THE PROGRAM

"Help! I deleted the Internet Explorer 4 icon from the desktop in favor of the one in Quick Launch. Before I destroyed the Internet icon, I could right-click it and choose Properties, then make changes without running IE 4. If I right-click the icon in Quick Launch and choose Properties, all I get is a standard Properties dialog box for shortcuts. Is there some way to make changes without the desktop Internet icon? I really don't want to put it back on the desktop."

Fortunately, you can do just what you want in Control Panel. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel. In Control Panel, double-click the Internet icon. This will open the Internet Properties dialog box--just as if you had run IE 4 and chosen View, Internet Options.

DOWNLOADING MULTIPLE FILES IN IE 4

"I sometimes would like to download several small files at the same time. Is this a problem for IE 4? Is it faster to download several files at once?"

No problems here, Carl. You can download more than one file at a time. However, we have found that you should stick to no more than four or five files.

Unfortunately, downloading multiple files simultaneously (or nearly) does not save download time. If your modem downloads at 56 kbps, then all the files together can't download faster than 56 kbps total. But a multiple download is often more convenient. Good luck!

CUSTOM SEARCH ENGINE HOME PAGES

If you happen to be among the many Internet surfers users who often use search engines, you might want to consider making one of them your home page. Yahoo offers a customizable home page. Just go to

http://www.yahoo.com

and click Personalize. You can now set up the page as you wish.

Another neat home page search engine is Webcrawler at

http://www.webcrawler.com

Go to the Personalize area, enter your information, and enjoy!

LOST QUICK LINKS IN IE 4

"Several weeks ago, I deleted the Quick Link to Best of the Web. Now I wish I had it back. Can you tell me how to replace this Quick Link?"

We sure can. The URL you're missing is

http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=ie&clcid=0x0409&pver=4.0&ar=Best

To replace the link, run Internet Explorer and choose Favorites, Organize Favorites. When the Organize Favorites folder opens, double-click Links. Next, right-click the Links folder and choose New, Shortcut. When the Create Shortcut dialog box opens, click the Command Line entry box and type

http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=ie&clcid=0x0409&pver=4.0&ar=Best

You may find it easiest to copy the line from here and paste it in the entry box with Ctrl-V.

To avoid this particular problem, it might be best to save your links in another folder rather than just deleting them. You could run Windows Explorer and go to \Windows\Favorites\Links. Use the right mouse button to drag the no longer needed links to another folder. When the menu appears select Move Here.

This way, you can easily replace your links later.

RESTORING HEADERS AND FOOTERS IN IE 4

"Your tip about changing IE 4's headers and footers when printing a Web page is handy. But how do we restore the default settings?"

In an October tip, we suggested that you delete the default headers and footers and enter your own. To do this, run IE 4 and choose File, Page Setup. When the Page Setup dialog box opens, you will see entry boxes for both the header and footer. Click in the entry box you want to use, delete the default entry, and type your information. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your additions.

Since you can change the headers and footers at any time, it is probably best to save the original contents in Notepad for later reentry. To do this, run Notepad and open IE 4. Choose File, Page Setup. When the Page Setup dialog box appears, select the text in the Header entry box and press Ctrl-X to cut the selection. Now move to Notepad and press Ctrl-V to paste the selection. Next, cut the text in the Footer entry box and paste it into Notepad.

In Notepad, choose File, Save As and name the file Header and Footer.txt. Click Save to save the file and close the Save As dialog box. Now you can always open your notepad file if you want to replace the original headers and footers.

The default header is &w&bPage &p of &P and &u&b&d is the default footer.

A NEW ICON FOR YOUR QUICK LINKS

"I have added some of my own links to the Quick Links bar in IE 4. Now I would like to change some of their icons. Is this possible?"

Yes, it is possible. To change a Quick Link's icon, run IE 4, right-click the Quick Link icon you want to change, and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Internet Shortcut tab. Click Change Icon; in the Change Icon dialog box, select a new icon. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your new icon selection.

If you don't see an icon you like, click Browse and locate an icon file. Double-click to open it, then select the icon you want to use. Back in the Change Icon dialog box, click OK. In the Properties dialog box, click OK to save your changes and close the dialog box.

Happy icon hunting!

CUSTOM COLOR FOR YOUR LINKS

"I have never seen this mentioned, but you can choose any color you want for your links. To select a color, run IE 4 and choose View, I