[seeker333]

My first post here, and i'm but a novice windows hacker, so please forgive my ignorance.

After several attempts i succeeding in building two versions of a completely unattended Windows 2000 HFSLIP installation. One version is full W2K with all the hotfixes as of June 10, following instructions at tomcat76's page here

http://users.telenet...nup/_win2k.html

The second version is a stripped down minimalist W2K following FDV's "no IE" instructions as described here

http://www.vorck.com/2ksp5.html

These two versions are installed on seperate partitions on the same drive booting up with XFdisk boot manager.

Both versions seem to work fine. I have tested all my applications and they work in both versions with one important (to me) exception. I can't get the online features in Quicken 2005 to work in my minimalist "no IE" W2K installation.

Specifically, when i try to use the online update feature (used to connect to send banking instructions, also to download completed financial transactions, and a number of other somewhat useless quicken features) the thing just freezes. The expected window never pops up. I can continue using quicken from this point fine, except for the fact that no internet connection is possible.

To me, it appears Quicken is searching for a normally installed Win 2K / IE feature, can't find it, and just stops.

This problem does not occur on my full HFSLIP W2K installation with IE+OE.

So i think the problem is something not installed in the "FDV no IE" version. I'm hoping there's a simple fix for this that allows me to continue using Quicken 2005 with the "FDV no IE" W2K version without extensive modification and undoing of FDV's fine work.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

btw Mr. Vorck, thanks very much for the instuctions on how to remove IE. My W2K version with no IE uses only 38.8 MB RAM (new install with no applications installed), versus an otherwise identical W2K install which launches using 108.2 MB RAM. The windows registry appears to have proportionally fewer entries as well.

So the "no IE" W2K" is about 1/3 the size of a normal installation.

This post has been edited by seeker333: 15 June 2006 - 03:35 PM

[Tomcat76]

Hi. Welcome to the forums.

Here's something you can try.
Johnathan Howell made this great utility called iexplore.exe which you can put in Program Files\Internet Explorer. When first run, it asks you for the path to your preferred web browser. From then onwards, any calls to iexplore.exe will be redirected to your browser of choice. You can reset this behavior at any time by deleting a registry key.

Download the program here. It's the MSFN thread where Johnathan announced the application. The information in the first post is a bit dated so do scroll down if you're interested in learning more about it.

If this proves to solve your Quicken problem, someone with more knowledge about the FDV fileset than me will help you with the integration of that file into HFSLIP.

Good luck...

[fdv]

hey man, i am familiar with the fdv fileset!
and with quicken, too (said in an annoyed way).

i run without ie on all the comps at work, because hey, why create more hassle for myself? i need to spend time learning linux for the future because i SURE as anything am not going to do this ridiculous "vista" thing.

anyway. so i had the same problem but instead of hanging the proggie said "updates not applied" although it looked like it was going through the motions. well, i call tech support. the tell me it's my firewall. i say doesn't it go out over port 80? port 80 is open, i say. they dont know what i mean. they say ie is not required. well, ie components ARE required. long story short, for the machine i had quickbooks on, i had to reinstall and leave ie in. our bookkeeper won't use anything else, so ok, her comp gets locked down. but nothing short of having ie is going to solve that dilemma, unfortunately.

fact is, they're simply not going to change. i have been round and round with them. i got cd's in the mail to update with, and the only difference? the cd says 'update applied' but it NEVER is. one time i manually moved the files and replaced old for new ones from a cd and that worked, but that was one time only. every other time the software just bombs. were it my business, i'd ban the program. i already do not use software that requires int exp like Norton System-Slow™ or Symantec Compu-Mule Version 8.

ok here comes a rant about windows generally.

long term i am making plans to migrate users to linux... this is a ways off, but it will come, with WINE and something like suse or kubuntu, open office, but i have not looked into bookkeeping software. the fact is, the costs of microsoft software will eventually equal the support cost of my time for free software, so it's an even trade to me, and support costs eventually go down. using windows-based software means that we will ALWAYS be paying lots of money for less and less productivity on harder-to-use platforms.

i'll use a friggin' mac before i'd consider using vista. i don't like apple's interface and their approach to ui design (hide everything!) seems idiotic to me, but that's how frustrated i am with the windows world where things are becoming more and more stupefyingly dumbed down... that '7 clicks to delete something' feature i read about i am sure will change, but come on... i use kubuntu 6 and it is maddeningly difficult and an uphill battle, but then, windows nt 4 was too back in the day, but the thing is, i think learning linux will pay off later. i simply cannot afford the costs of what the windows world of software is putting me through from an IT Department standpoint.

so, sorry for the rant...

on another note, you're quite welcome on the 38mb version of windows! it blows my mind that people prefer XP for pretty icons and more drivers and, ummmm.... 40 MORE MEGS OF MEMORY TAKEN???!?!! hey, each to his own, but when people here on msfn tell someone that there is really no difference in speed, i just show 'em the cold facts...

This post has been edited by fdv: 16 June 2006 - 01:33 AM

[seeker333]

Tomcat-

Thanks for the kind welcome. Many more thanks for organizing all those Windows hotfixes together on one site. You and FDV have performed a real service for us all. Trying to hunt up 40-50 MS hotfixes would be a huge chore, and i doubt i would have found them all.

I followed your suggestion with iexplore.exe In doing so, i discovered that a. it didn't help with the Quicken problem and b. FDV has apparently already incorporated the file into his "no IE" fileset (based on fdv's comment at the end of the thread in the your link, and the iexplore.exe filesize is identical, maybe fdv can confirm). So I already had iexplore.exe.

FDV -

You're getting further with Quickbooks than I can get with Quicken 2005. When I attempt any internet connecting function with Quicken it simply doesn't respond - like a dud mouse click. You probably know this, but there aren't many choices for personal financial software - theres Quicken, MS Money (MUST have IE to use), and Moneydance, which i tested.

Moneydance does seem to work in the "no IE W2K" installation. Its a memory hog (java based). It takes 50 MB of RAM for me to load, far more than Quicken 2005 (18 MB). Naturally, it was not able to translate all my quicken data accurately, and now shows me to be about $100,000 richer. I didn't bother to fully test Moneydance - i didn't set up online accounts, etc so i did not test its ability to upload/download data.

As an alternative to above, i exported my Quicken data as text files and pasted them together into a large MS Excel worksheet - ten years of data translates into 6 columns by 9,400 rows. This option will take some work but i know others who use excel for personal accounting. Maybe i can sort this out. HA.

You mentioned Open Office. I looked at it briefly as an alternative to MS Office. To me OO appears to be relatively primitive. It's slow and memory intensive. But its free so it probably deserves more consideration. I think i'm sticking with MS Office for now. I use only excel and word. Excel appears to work fine in the "no IE W2K" installation. I haven't tested Word so far.

Anyhow, thanks for the help.

[Aluminum]

Its too bad all the lazy bastards that use IE in their crap program and sell it retail can't get sued under the old antitrust suit for collusion with a monopoly or something.

The bookkeeping/billing software world sucks, as I found out first hand a few years back.

Theres 3 choices for running a business:

1) Quickbooks Quickbooks Quickbooks Quickbooks Quickbooks Quickbooks Quickbooks (different versions and increasing price levels if you want features beyond a fly-by-night business)
2) Myob (runs on macs too, but drives me insane with its warped logic)
3) You are a F500 company and outsource to some development house to write you a top-to-bottom solution for a couple million a year. (slight exaggeration...slight)

It would be nice if someone in OSS was interested in trying to start something, but its not really their style. In fact I wonder if anything out there besides something like #3 even runs on linux

[pcalvert]

Aluminum, on Jun 17 2006, 10:35 AM, said:

It would be nice if someone in OSS was interested in trying to start something, but its not really their style. In fact I wonder if anything out there besides something like #3 even runs on linux

Did somebody say Linux?

Look what I just found:
GnuCash

Phil

[Aluminum]

I will try that just because I hate quickbooks and myob so much...if only I was compentent enough to tweak code though