> Installation: Yes, Robert Scmitt and all, both IE and VE will
> change file associations and make it more difficult for you to
> view your favorite stuff in, say, Navigator with WebFX. I'm not
> surprise as IE is very much associated with the OS itself. As a
> rssult, I will now have to re-install WebFX to bring my system
> back to the way it was.
This is annoying all right. Unfortunately this is typical of Windows
95 software. I installed another VRML viewer only to discover that
this viewer has also become my associated application for viewing
different image formats. So Microsoft is hardly alone in modifying
file associations when their software is installed. This is not to
say that this is all right, but I wouldn't jump to the "Microsoft
taking over the world" conspiracy theory becauseMicrosoft's do what
other software does. This is obnoxious but no more so than when a
no-name shareware app does the same thing.
Application developers should design polite installation processes that at
least give the user a choice about any changes to file associations.
I wouldn't even mind if a "novice" install mode changed the
associations (though I'm not sure that is ideal) if I am given an
"expert" install mode with control over associations.
If an install process does rudely change file associations, it
should at least report what it did.
Tim Wegner