MicroHard, Part III

The 13th Commandment:
Thou shalt not uninstall Internet Explorer

by sonya hammond

The term 'explorer' calls to mind courageous journeys where no woman/man has gone before ... where questions may be answered or truths uncovered by those willing to face danger and deprivation in the name of the advancement of science, knowledge, or themselves.

As an electronic example [although exactly what, if anything, it advances might be argued] Microsoft's Internet Explorer5 leaves little doubt of its ability to provide danger and deprivation.

True, IE's numerous versions have enabled users to explore the net without paying MS for the privilege, although often not by choice. As Congress and MS's competitors have indignantly recognized, more and more PCs are sold joined to the hip with Explorer, and while it is probably true that its browser capabilities enable exploration, it is not prone to rescue if things go wrong ... and they will.  The most challenging thing about Explorer can be the effort it takes to deal with it.

Two previous diatribes [MicroHard, Part I and Part II] record the relatively minor annoying aspects of my personal relationship with Explorer in its latest and most insidious mutation  ... hidden within MS software programs.  I survived those glitches with minor cuts and bruises, but in the MS war these were mere initial skirmishes. In its determination to take over the electronic world, Explorer 5 does take prisoners.

By actual count, it took 42 [forty-two] days to release me from what is termed by computer programmers [who have much to answer for] an 'invalid page fault'.  PC users, as millions will unhappily attest, become aware of this threat to sanity when a nasty little box pops up on their monitors, announcing the mind-boggling news that 

Clicking on the box's handy 'Details' button brings up dubious information involving 'Registers, Bytes, and Stack dumps', all  defined numerically.  Since few of us speak numbers, our natural inclination is to close the box and go on with whatever we were doing before one of our pages became invalidly at fault. With any luck, the box may close. Be forewarned, however, it will reappear. Over and over and over.

Rule No. 4,872,694 of PC usage reads: "Once you have acquired an invalid page fault, it will remain yours until you pay someone else to resolve it, you destroy your PC and buy a MAC, or forever, possibly all three simultaneously."  You will know this is true, because the damned box will continue to pop up approximately 432 times daily, usually just in time to clear your mind of any brilliant ideas it might be having. Your reluctance to return to Microsoft for 'support' will diminish in direct ratio to your tolerance for mental cruelty.

Turning one's software problems over to MS on-line is the electronic equivalent of willingly submitting to interrogation by the Spanish Inquisition. Although MS's web site repartee is unflinchingly cheerful, assuring us that their #1 goal is customer satisfaction [a pledge the presiding judge in the government's antitrust trial against them might refute], don't expect the process to be less painful than a session on Torquemada's rack.

The most persistent stumbling block to speedy MS solutions is getting past a staff brainwashed in the belief that the entire world uses W98 [now replaced with W2000, not necessarily an improvement.]  When the first three responses to my pleas for relief from page fault syndrome entailed methods available only through this Edsel of the software world, I threatened to provide various nerds with the numerous reasons I had reverted to W95, if they didn't stop nagging me about its successor.

An amazing variety of suggested solutions failed to stop my invalid page fault notifications, forcing MS to resort to the more direct, if mundane approach of the telephone, and the appointment of my very own personal nerd.  This guy's determination and patience almost compensated for what he put me through.

Only if you have tried to follow Julia Childs' phone directions in French for making Coq au Vin from scratch, while stirring and measuring with one hand, consulting your French/English dictionary with the other, and cradling the phone receiver between your ear and your shoulder, can you appreciate the trauma involved.

Through 4 long, tedious phone sessions, my nerd led me through the bowels of my computer, descending into the sacred halls of the dread '.ini' file, typing out an endless succession of commands in antiquated DOS mode, and burrowing into Windows folders previously marked 'do not alter' on penalty of unspecified dire consequences.  After each session, I waited, with fading hopes, for the page fault box to vanish. It did not.

Forty-two days and some 17 failed solutions later, my tenacious nerd suggested that the problem might lie in my 'start up' programs. The quest to determine which of these refused to bow to the will of IE5 was lengthy, but ultimately successful.  A likely suspect was zapped, and 24 hours later the dread page fault box had not appeared.  Case closed.

A few questions, however, remain: 

Should software packaging be required to list its ingredients, i.e., "This upgrade contains Internet Explorer5 which does not play well with others"?  

Should a warning be printed: "Internet Explorer5 may cause page faults and/or other hazards to the health of your PC system"? 

Or does the 'fault' actually lie elsewhere than on a remote module in the computers of innocent consumers ... say, somewhere in Redmond, Washington?

©sonya hammond 1999

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