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Topic: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin (Read 29762 times) previous topic - next topic

Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

A recent Microsoft security update disables the NWC Browser Plug-in when browsing with Internet Explorer. This thread is for discussion regarding these recent changes (refer to news headline #21 for full details).

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #1 –
Hence, my comment about non-standard browsers on the thread about music formats, parallel to this thread in time (25-Apr-03). The NWC browser plug in (and some others) worked fine in IE6 until a recent IE update, now they don't work. Everyone else has to develop a work-around for Microsoft.

But before you blame Bill G., there's a legit reason why there has been such a security update in IE. It's to prevent nasty things, that would be screened out if presented as HTML, from going through the back door via a plug-in. At least, that's what I'm told.

I would actually recommend that instead of the plug-in, the NoteWorthy Player could be used. Download time is about the same. But the Player is used outside the scope of the web page. The file could be transmitted in a ZIP archive, so that the infamous MIME-type problem doesn't arise.

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #2 –
There was a security alert regarding plugin.ocx and heap overflows. Perhaps this is what prompted Microsoft to make this change. However, rather than directly solve the problem, Microsoft chose to simply disable the mechanism, leaving it unused, but still insecure.

Switching to NoteWorthy Player will not solve the problem of viewing web sites that have embedded their NWC files inside a web page.

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #3 –
I am told that it is possible for a knowledgable user to re-set some sort of flag in the Registry. But I am not going to try it. Besides, that's not practical advice. Those who post their music can't be telling potential viewers how to hack their computer.

It may be possible for a revised plug-in installer to do the hack automatically. But I would expect that in the next Windows update, MS will simply re-re-set the flag.

Aw, the heck with plug-ins.

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #4 –
Read our news item, which covers the registry option.

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #5 –
... ah, that's where I read it! But it was 2 hours ago, so I forgot where ... and no, I haven't been to happy hour today.

As for the Player, I wasn't referring to embedded NWC files, but rather to downloadable links (prefereably to the NWC file in a ZIP package, rather than to the NWC file itself).

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #6 –
<Image Link>Oh poor victim of the Micro$oft monopoly. Micro$oft has a long history of avoiding the problem. It started with Windows 95 when the Illegal error was introduced. It said loud and clear: blame some one else; it's not our fault. And now they go and take away all that allows humble companies to still work with their browser. I think we should flood the Micro$oft e-mail until we get either an operating system without Internet Explorer or an Internet Explorer with security and plug-in support.

<Image Link>And then there's this other big company: AOL. They bully people, too. Why can't they support legacy plug-ins?

Rest in Peace poor NWC utilities.
Sincerely,
Francis Beaumier
Green Bay, WI

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #7 –
".. an operating system without Internet Explorer..."
Have a look at "98lite". It makes IE an optional component, and gives you three shell options besides -- "sleek," "chubby" and "overweight." Your guess as to which option is the w98 default! The "sleek" option is really cool - it retrofits the W95 desktop to the W98 engine... with a remarkable speed improvement. The "preview" version is completely functional, nag-free, and with no time limit. Get it here.

Robert's comment got me thinking -- couldn't NWS automatically reset that flag in the registry during install of the browser plugin? The only side effect is that you'd probably need to do a system reboot after installation. This could be made an option, something to the effect of "If you're using version blah of IE or above, you need to do this. If you're using a real browser, you don't need to bother." ... Well ok, maybe it could be worded more diplomatically... ;-)

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #8 –
Aaack! You mean I finally get Netscape to work with my nwc files, and now Internet Explorer will not?  Like the little dutch oy trying to plug the holes in the dyke . . .

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #9 –
>".. an operating system without Internet Explorer..."

We used IEradicator on our old Pentium 100MHz Windows 95 notebook computer. This was necessary since we installed IE 5.5 on it before realizing that the PC was simply not capable of handling it. IEradicator was the only way to get IE back off of the PC. Once IE was removed, Opera turned out to be the most responsive browser for this system, since the notebook only has 32MB of RAM. Running Opera, NoteWorthy Composer, and vanBasco's Karaoke Player, this 8 year old PC is still useful today.

>couldn't NWS automatically reset that flag in the registry during install of the browser plugin?

The plugin installer certainly could technically do this, but it will not be changed in this way. There is apparently a security hole in the Windows plugin.ocx mechanism which Microsoft has chosen not to fix. Microsoft simply configured IE such that it will not be used, rather than fixing the problem. Since it is not fixed, it would be inappropriate for the NWC Browser Plugin to alter the IE settings itself.

>The Winamp plugin...

The Winamp plugin is a little different, since the Winamp plugin architecture was never under the umbrella of a standard (the browser plugin mechanism was quite clearly specified by Netscape when it was introduced, and IE conformed when Netscape had the larger market share). In Winamp's case, "Nullsoft gave'th the Winamp2 plugin architecture, and Nullsoft take'th it away..."

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #10 –
In Winamp's case, "Nullsoft gave'th the Winamp2 plugin architecture, and Nullsoft take'th it away..."

erm... are you meaning that new WinAmps will not work with the NWC plugin?

What will that leave us with?
1) NWC plugin for Opera, NetScape and not IE
2) Noteworthy Player for IE >6.0 users
3) No Winamp plugin any more
4) Noteworthy Player as usual.

Well, that's still as good as Adobe Acrobat's free reader, and they're gonna be hit by this change just as much.

Are Microsoft a bunch of idiots?

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #11 –
The NWC Winamp plug-in will work with 2.x but not 3.x because the architecture was changed. But Nullsoft still updates "classic" Winamp (2.x) every once in a while, so it's not such a bad option unless you really need something in version 3. I haven't found much new...in fact, I disliked both of them so bad I just went back to ... gasp! ... MICROSOFT Windows Media Player! As I have for at least the past year, however, I still ban myself from IE.

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #12 –
So, if I just refrain from upgrading IE, will things still work for me?

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #13 –
Mike H, Reply 12: Yes, but that is not necessarily a good option, and certainly not one that we recommend.

Andrew, Reply 10: Acrobat Reader uses Microsoft's ActiveX technology to plug into Internet Explorer, so it is safe from the change being discussed here. In effect, that appears to be what Microsoft wants everyone to do. I think Microsoft understands this very well.

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #14 –
1) Well I see you changed my icons a little bit (squint, squint,).  What I really wanted to do was make the text wrap around the big ones like you have on the main page, but anyway . . .

2) Thanks for all the comments on Windows 98. I used to have Windows 95, but a nice new computer was dropped on my doorstep a year ago or so and it has Windows XP. As far as I know, there is no way to remove Windows XP. I have become quite comfortable with the NT based operating systems and am not really interested in switching back to Windows 95 with such a good computer at hand.

3) Running Opera, NoteWorthy Composer, and vanBasco's Karaoke Player, this 8 year old PC is still useful today.

LOL, that is basically what we settled on for our 75Mhz pentium. After awhile even Opera seemed slow, be it was pretty good none the less. The only problem I have with Opera is that it still displays this site wrong. All the Arial fonts are replaced with Times New Roman.

Anyway, we gave away that old computer and now the most useful computer we have is a 386 desktop running at about 25Mhz. It can start a new Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS document in 30 seconds from the time the power is turned on! We just turned it on the other day. Dad would rather use that computer downstairs where it's quiet than fight for this one. The date was a week off; the time wasn't even close. Same old computer. Y2K didn't bother it at all. The BIOS is copywritten 1987.

P.S. About the graphics in this forum: can I make a galery or would you rather them be kept rather hidden to the casual user.
Sincerely,
Francis Beaumier
Green Bay, WI

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #15 –
Text discussion is preferred. If posts start embedding many graphics, it can disrupt the flow of discussion. Also, graphics are subject to change or removal.

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #16 –
Eric said: "Acrobat Reader uses Microsoft's ActiveX technology to plug into Internet Explorer, so it is safe from the change being discussed here. In effect, that appears to be what Microsoft wants everyone to do. I think Microsoft understands this very well."

That's assuming ActiveX is safe. LOL!

So will NWC look at being an ActiveX plugin for IE users? I don't think I'd mind at all moving away from IE to something a little less gargantuan. Opera, eh?

I tell ya, Eric, if NWC added a native Linux platform, I'd be off Microsoft windows in a flash!

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #17 –
>So will NWC look at being an ActiveX plugin for IE users?

Time will tell...

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #18 –
News: MAN BITES DOG!

What I mean is, I recently discovered that one of my web pages bombs in JavaScript, only in IE, and only when on-line (not on my own computer). I ran every imaginable test and validator, and couldn't find an error. The page didn't bomb a week ago. It's doesn't use a plug-in.

So I went to the Microsoft web site... Lo and behold, their own main web page has the same problem!

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #19 –
...and to answer the question that you were about to ask: The Microsoft web page does not bomb in Netscape 7.

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #20 –
...the above mystery has been solved. Now, back to the NWC plug-in:

If any of you would like to see an example of the NWC browser plug-in, inside a valid XHTML 1.1 web page, here it is:

http://www.icogitate.com/~ergosum/misc/sevenlastwords-nwcplugin.htm

Due to the browser issues discussed above in this forum thread, the plug-in will only work with browsers that accept Netscape-type plugin. In other words, not with any recent version of Internet Explorer. I don't know if it works on non-Windows platforms.

The web page coding uses well-known methods. Use some of the coding, if you like. In particular, notice the use of nested div to achieve the effect of centering in recent browsers, without the html center tag.

If and when the NWC browser plug-in also becomes available in an ActiveX version, then the object code on my page won't work for it. You can use a javascript test, using document.write to place IE-Windows specific code if the browser has document.all, and Netscape-type code if not document.all. That won't cover every situation, but it will cover the most likely ones.

Gurus: XHTML does not require the starting xml declaration if the page is served as html (with htm or html extension).

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #21 –
I've written a program (more accurately - a batch script) which installs the plugin and fixes your browser so it will display the plugin AUTOMATICALLY and in one step.

Actually, it's just a script that patches the first registry then launches the plugin installation.

DOWNLOAD THE .ZIP FILE at:
http://www.calhost.com/NWCplugin_install_patch.zip

Have questions or confused? Give me a holler at

alawson [at] calhost [d0t] com

and I'll post your questions and answers in this very same thread. Do NOT ask questions here as I do not visit this thread hardly ever. I stumbled across it and figured I'd make life easier for some folks who want some feeling of automation with the install process and are not comfortable editing their system registry on their own.

By default, the program JUST edits the registry. With a small change (explained in the script), it will also install the plugin too!

Hope this helps someone,

Adam
alawson [at]  calhost [d0t] com

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #22 –
Another solution is to delete your version of Windows & re-install it.  Had to have this hard drive re-partitioned, that's how I found out
Ken

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #23 –
I tried the plugin "fix" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{06DD38D3-D187-11CF-A80D-00C04FD74AD8}\Compatibility Flags
with the flag set to 0 which worked fine worked fine until several months ago I installed the update Q822925, after which - though I cannot be sure that that was the cause - the plugin did not work.

Promted again to try to fix this by Tina's new site I noticed a subtle difference between the entries in the Compatibility flags between a W2k machine and an XP machine - the XP has a new key PluginValue, which I
deleted - reckless, of course, but it had no value attached to it - and lo the NW browser plugin now works in IE.

Just in case anyone else was having the same trouble.
Stuart
PS Adam Lawson's script (above) does not presently address this.

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #24 –
There have been problems with faulty programs from Microsoft for many years I remember all the bugs that where reported over dos 6 which they opted to ignore and release anyway then followed it up with dos 6.3 where some of the probs where solved but again not all it appears that MS wants to release products fast before the bugs are worked ou in order to increase revenue maybe I'm synical but thats what I have seen over the many years they should start listening to there Beta testers and maybe then work the bugs out before realising there products on the market.
I must say though that after they finnally work the bugs out their product is very good but by that time they release a new version and the probs start all over again

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #25 –
Now, now... Isn't (for example) the Firefox browser on its fourth security fix after initial public release?

Re: Internet Explorer and the NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #26 –
And, here's a quotation from an on-line source called the National Ledger:

"AOL released Netscape 8.0 yesterday and in just 24 hours the new "secure" Netscape Browser has nearly 50 critical flaws.  The company went to great lengths to tout their new security features for the release, but having to issue forty-something security advisories within the first day has to be some kind of record."

If you wish to find discussions about security bugs in other operatings systems, just go to their user forums.