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IE 5 and Diamond files clash

Chiyo Robertson ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 25 Mar 1999 15:10 GMT

Incompatibilities between Microsoft's new browser and Diamond's drivers, uncovered by Softbank-owned virus tracking site Bugnet.com, ended up crippling some users' computers.

According to the Internet Explorer release notes, if you have installed Microsoft's browser then later upgraded a Diamond video driver which has been downloaded from their Web site, your computer may not restart. According to Microsoft, the Diamond update overwrites a DLL file, which cripples the system.

But the problem, according to Diamond's spokesman Neil McGuiness, centred on upgraded graphics files within IE5. "Our video driver files are not used to talking to some IE5 files. Diamond video drivers do overwrite files, as they always have when installing a new driver, but with IE5 our driver cannot read some files."

A classic chicken and egg conundrum, said McGuiness -- neither party is to blame -- not obviously anyway. "It's not fair to apportion blame though. IE5 has new graphics files and at the end of the day, we've ended up with files that clash. Microsoft was eager to get IE5 out fast, it's for us to react quickly," he said.

Diamond, which has a driver engineer permanently based at Microsoft's base, said it will release new drivers in a couple of months and it recommends anyone planning to install a new video drive to back up before re-booting from the system disk.

More information about upgrading Diamond drives with IE5 can be found at Bugnet.com.