URGENT UPDATE AS OF FEBRUARY 2ND, 2004
On February 2nd, 2004, Microsoft released an update to its Internet Explorer web browser that was included in the Windows Auto-Update. This update effectively DISALLOWED THE INCLUSION OF A WEBSITE'S USERNAME AND PASSWORD in the linking URL. Real the Official Statement .
Example of Link to a members area: http://username:password@www.example.com/members/
Clicking on the above URL will now produce an error in new versions of IE.
This poses a problem for visitors of this website because nearly all of the links we have usually include the username and password in the link itself.
WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? WHAT WILL CHANGE?
SOLUTION #1:
If you're using windows, then CLICK HERE to download the .reg file for the fix. Open or double click on it and it will import the following keys into your registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_HTTP_USERNAME_PASSWORD_DISABLE]
"iexplore.exe"=dword:00000000
"explorer.exe"=dword:00000000
Then CLOSE ALL BROWSER WINDOWS and RESTART you browser !
SOLUTION #2:
If you have Windows XP(the most affected) and have already installed the latest windows auto-update....Go to Start, Accessories, System tools and press on "SYSTEM RESTORE" (this program does magic!!!)...keeping in mind that the auto-update was released on 2/2/04, restore your system back a couple days at least, and hit OK.....once your system gets rebooted, the computer will actually behave as it never downloaded the Windows auto-update patch.....YOU ARE SET!!!!....the funny thing is that after a few minutes the auto-update screen will pop up and ask you to install the update that you installed on 2/2/04....just avoid it as much as you can(try me in 3 days!) until some computer geek comes with a patch that fix the nagging "invalid syntax error"......as for concerns on security issues, well guys, nothing comes free in life.....as long as you have a firewall protector (Zone Alarm)and keep a low profile online, you should not be worryng about being hacked....Of course, with all kind of shit happening online, all updates from MS should be taken seriously, so it is your choice...Hopefully, someone will come up with a fix....GOOD LUCK
SOLUTION #3:
If you get an error when clicking on the link, then click on the web site address (where you see the link with the username and password). Then delete the username:password combination from the URL so you'll get a link like this: http://www.example.com/members . Then it will ask for username and password and you can get in to the site by entering this combination manually. (Just look at the error message that you got when you clicked on the link for the fist time because you can see the combination there so you can enter it easily).
You may download the Netscape web browser and continue surfing this old-format page, or if you are still using the old, non-updated Internet Explorer, you won't notice this error.
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