IE Download error

[Miles]

Greetings! 2 problems (related?); any suggestions
appreciated:

1) I can log onto the internet & surf/email, etc.,
but I receive the following error message when I try to
download a program or listen to streaming audio:

"Internet Explorer cannot download ABC.ram from
www.XYZ.com. IE was not able to open this internet
site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot
be found. Please try again later."

This even happened when I tried to reinstall IE 6.

2) My machine periodically gets 'stuck, ' where it
cycles for about 2 minutes before completing a command
(no response during this time to further commands, once
it gets 'unstuck' all the stored commands execute).

Background: Compaq 1800 XL laptop, P3 700 MHz, 256 RAM
with XP.

Trauma: machine was recently dropped, some Windows files
were lost that required a cold boot to reinstall XP.

I have run check disk/defrag multiple times (it looks OK
other than the 2 items above). Thanks, Miles.

[Sharon F]

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 09:50:39 -0700, Miles wrote:

> Greetings! 2 problems (related?); any suggestions
> appreciated:
>
> 1) I can log onto the internet & surf/email, etc.,
> but I receive the following error message when I try to
> download a program or listen to streaming audio:
>
> "Internet Explorer cannot download ABC.ram from
> www.XYZ.com. IE was not able to open this internet
> site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot
> be found. Please try again later."
>
> This even happened when I tried to reinstall IE 6.
>
> 2) My machine periodically gets 'stuck, ' where it
> cycles for about 2 minutes before completing a command
> (no response during this time to further commands, once
> it gets 'unstuck' all the stored commands execute).
>
> Background: Compaq 1800 XL laptop, P3 700 MHz, 256 RAM
> with XP.
>
> Trauma: machine was recently dropped, some Windows files
> were lost that required a cold boot to reinstall XP.
>
> I have run check disk/defrag multiple times (it looks OK
> other than the 2 items above). Thanks, Miles.

1) RAM files are Real Audio files. You need to install one of the Real
Players. Personally, I install as little as possible of this software. I
install only the free versions and only allow it to play Real Audio files.

2) A new installation of XP is slower than one that is a few weeks old.
During those first few weeks, the Prefetch folder is building a record of
most often used programs and XP does some behind the scenes housekeeping to
optimize the relative files. You can speed up this process by running the
defragmenter often in the next few weeks.

Also check that indexing is not turned on. The Index service can be
configured in Administrative Tools> Services. The properties for each drive
also have a setting to allow/disallow indexing.

--
Sharon F
MS-MVP - Windows XP Shell/User