Geoff Chappell - Software Analyst
For best viewing of this website, particularly to navigate it with a table of contents, a few things are expected of your browser. A quick summary is that this site:
Moreover, those scripts may not work as intended unless the browser is Internet Explorer specifically (version 5.00 or higher). If you use any other browser and find that the presentation is unsatisfactory, then disable scripts.
This site does not attempt to store cookies on your computer. Neither does it try to download code, such as ActiveX controls, for execution on your computer. Except for an experimental facility to search the site, there is no magic on the server side. Everything that is done here is entirely open to your inspection from the client side.
The browser requirements for best viewing are explained in some detail separately, with a brief history in case you care to know how the site came to its expectations.
The main reason for the requirements is the development of a dynamic table of contents (TOC) as the primary means for navigating the many pages here (approximately 1500). Without the TOC, finding your way through all these pages will be much less easy. The TOC is meant to be intuitive. If its behaviour for you is not straightforward, then the scripts are likely not working as intended. You will do better either to view with Internet Explorer or with JavaScript disabled.
If you visit this site more than occasionally, you may gain from knowing a little more about the intended user interface, e.g., for keyboard shortcuts.
Even without the browser requirements for best viewing, the site should deliver you a static TOC as long as your browser supports CSS. The static TOC is also meant to be straightforward. If you have trouble with this static TOC, then please read about the alternate user interface.
Some known problems remain, even for Internet Explorer but especially for other browsers. I will try to get these written up or resolved.
The following browsers other than Internet Explorer have at least been looked at by now to check that the website presents acceptably:
Opera version 9.64 has also been looked at, but it presents some small difficulties, notably for its handling of clicks on list-item markers in the TOC. The scripts run tolerably for it, but not recommendably. I may attend better to this browser some other day. I would be less disinclined if its debugger (Dragonfly) did not keep trying to connect to Opera’s website on the Internet while I try to observe this browser on my intranet. This is either suspect behaviour or a very unsatisfactory design, at least as I see it, and I won’t indulge it while I don’t have to.
Of course, my observation of all these browsers is no more than cursory and I do not intend even to look for older versions. This website is for presenting the results of original research into highly technical issues of what Windows actually does. Mucking around with alternative browsers takes time away from discovery and leaves even less time for writing up.
For any browser, if the behaviour of my site is deficient for you and you write to me with an explanation of what is wrong and what can be done about it, I will at least look at accommodating your solution.