On 1 Nov 98, Eric J Hoffman wrote:
> Have you been able to successfully dl from there beofre? The active setup
> message is telling you that it will look in your machine to see what you
> have installed....a nifty little feature I think.
>
> Have you recently had problems with your machine, particularly in the OS
> region, eg Registry error warnings or similar?
I've had similar problems with MS "automated download" features to those
Jack outlines, so I don't think it's necessarily an anomaly. And in any
case, even if system problems at the user's end did account for the failure
of the process, it's still absurd that it should be impossible to download
the software as a result. Or that the error messages give no clue as to
what the cause of the failure might be.
I would also be *highly* suspicious of any Microsoft process that goes
sniffing around my registry/config files before allowing me to download
more of its software. Though I'm not nearly as hostile or paranoid about
the company as some list members appear to be, I generally mistrust any
"favours" MS offers to do me -- there invariably are strings attached.
It's kinda shocking to discover just how much information your browser
can access about you and your system, and can in return forward to a
vendor... Netscape, for instance, has a new bug-reporting utility built in
that will (if user-enabled) forward a highly detailed report to the company
when your browser suffers fatal crash. It will e-mail to Netscape rafts of
information gleaned from your registry -- make and model of all your
peripherals, that sort of thing -- though it omits personal information such
as name and company. Though it could include that too, obviously.
So when MS starts insisting I install an application called "Active Setup" --
which will dig through my registry -- before it allows me to download
software, red flags start waving madly in the mental breeze. I just don't
trust 'em.
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Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Town of Almonte site: http://www.almonte.com/
Business site: http://www.federalweb.com
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