FIX: No Error Message When XML Malformed File Opened in Internet Explorer on Windows 95/98/Me Systems (298961)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Data Access Components 2.5
Microsoft Data Access Components 2.5 SP1
Microsoft XML 2.5

This article was previously published under Q298961

SYMPTOMS

When you use Microsoft Internet Explorer to open an XML file that has no encoding specified and that contains characters with high ASCII-codes, and your computer is running Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) with MDAC version 2.5 and MSXML version 2.5, Internet Explorer does not display an error message.

Internet Explorer should display the following error message:

An Invalid character was found in text content. Line n, Position n

CAUSE

If an XML file has no encoding specified and contains characters with high ASCII-codes, the UTF-8 decoder in MSXML 2.5 converts these invalid chararacters to unicode #FFFF, which causes internal functions to work improperly on Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me systems, and no error message is displayed in the Internet Explorer window.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Data Access Components 2.5. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

293312 INFO: How to Obtain the Latest MDAC 2.5 Service Pack

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Data Access Components 2.5 Service Pack 2.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

Save the following code in an XML file and open the file in Internet Explorer. No error message is displayed on Windows Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me systems with MDAC 2.5 and MSXML 2.5.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!-- test -->
<root>
<name type="first name">John</name>
<name>Doe</name>
<name></name>
</root>

REFERENCES

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

296730 INFO: MDAC 2.5 Service Pack 2 Included in Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 Release

Modification Type:	Major	Last Reviewed:	10/16/2003
Keywords:	kbbug kbfix kbMDAC250SP2fix kbMSXMLnosweep KB298961