Successive Installs of IEAK-Built IE Packages Append (172414)

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SYMPTOMS

If you install an Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK)-built custom Internet Explorer 4.0 package on top of another IEAK-built package, the second install appends its customized User Agent string to the older one, instead of replacing it.

CAUSE

When an IEAK-built Active Setup installer finds that Internet Explorer 4.0 is already installed, it doesn't entirely replace the original string. It should look in the current string for anything between the platform and the closing parenthesis, and then replace that with the custom string specified through IEAK. Instead, it inserts the IEAK custom string before the closing parenthesis of the current one.

WORKAROUND

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys And Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it.

If you have installed an IEAK-built package on a computer, you can edit the User Agent string in the Registry before installing another package by performing the following steps:

From the Start menu, select Run and type Regedit.

Highlight the following key:

\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\User Agent

From the Edit menu, select Modify.
In the Value data box, type the following:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0b2; Windows [95/NT 4])
Close the Registry Editor.

MORE INFORMATION

The User Agent string is a line of text that contains information about the name, version, and operating system of an Internet client using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This information gets passed from the client (usually a Web browser) to a server whenever a request is made via HTTP. The information in the User Agent string is frequently used by Webmasters to tailor sites to users with different browsers.

For example, a Webmaster can set up a script on the Web server that detects if Internet Explorer 4.0 is the browser in use. If it is, the server can direct the user to pages that use IE features such as ActiveX and Dynamic HTML. Additionally, Web developers may want to keep statistics of which browsers people use to explore their sites; the presence of the User Agent string in the HTTP request allows them to do so.