IEAK Frequently Asked Questions

The purpose of this FAQ is to answer common questions about the IEAK that have been received from a number of various sources.

What is the IEAK?

With the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK), you can customize the Internet Explorer to match the needs of your organization as well modify as its look and feel. The IEAK also provides an easy way to distribute pre-configured versions of the browser to end users or customers. With the IEAK you can:

A simple Wizard guides corporate administrators, Internet Service providers (ISPs), Internet Content Providers (ICPs), and others through the process of creating self-installing versions of Internet Explorer and any add-on products, such as Microsoft NetMeeting and Comic Chat. You can then redistribute Internet Explorer royalty-free under the terms of Microsoft licensing and distribution agreements.

The IEAK offers distinct advantages to each of the groups listed below:

Is filling out the online sign-up form the only requirement to legally redistribute IE?

In order to legally redistribute Microsoft Internet Explorer, please read the license and distribution agreement for your specific situation. If you can fulfill the Company Obligations, please complete the online form and you will have entered our records as legal redistributor of the Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Can IE be redistributed with a VAR or a third party?

Yes. The VAR or third party would fall under the companyÆs license and distribution agreement with MS. The company would need to ensure that the VAR/third party adhere to the Company Obligations outlined in the license and distribution agreement.

How can I redistribute Internet Explorer with 128-Bit Encryption?

Because of encryption-related U.S. regulations, a separate licensing process is required if you want to redistribute 128-bit encryption with Internet Explorer, which allows for advanced encryption to provide higher security for financial transactions and such over the Internet. Per federal regulations, licensees must be located in the U.S. or Canada only. Refer to the license information on the IEAK web site for further information.

What is the Internet Sign-up Server?

The Internet Sign-up Server (ISS) is a CGI script or program which returns a configured ISS file to the browser on signup. It can be as simple as a small Perl script to return an application/x-internet-signup MIME response and the INSTALL.INS file plus the necessary user information, to a complex CGI script to validate customer responses and open a new account online, returning the necessary customization and setup information.

An example of an ISS server (written in C) is provided with the IEAK. This is sample code and is not intended for full implementation. You can build a server based on the example, or write your own in the language of your choice (eg. Perl, C, awk).

I have been installing a copy of mIRC along with the browser and can not get the mIRC to recognize the local host.

It seems that the problem lies in the way mIRC and some other apps like WS_Ping were attempting to get the host IP address.

By default mIRC attempts to get the host IP address with the gethostbyname() function, this will work only if the dialer dynamically records that information into a file when a connection is made, the dialer for IE 2.1 does not do this.

A more accurate way for an application to obtain the IP address of its host to use the getsockname() function which opens a socket to a remote host and then returns the IP address through the open connection. You can force mIRC to do this by going into the Setup>>Local Info dialog for mIRC, in the "Localhost" field type the domain name for your service (), leave the IP address field blank and check the "IP Address" box rather than the "Local Host" box. This will force mIRC to use the getsockname() function rather than the gethostbyname() function.

Under Windows 95, scripting does not install and the script does not link to the DUN connection or activate. The script is being created, why isn't it working?

While this would be very common on a development computer (where you are adding and removing options often), it should be rare that it would affect customers.

The way ICW works is that it ensures that dial-up networking is installed then it ensure that the dial-up scripting tool is installed. It checks for the existence of the scripting tool by looking for smmscrpt.dll in the windows\system directory. If the file is there, ICW assumes scripting is installed. The problem is that the dial-up scripting tool uninstall code doesn't remove this file or the reg settings. So I believe what you are seeing is as follows:

To test out the ICW code all you need to do is delete the smmscrpt.dll file.

I'm an Internet Service Provider and I want to use a proxy server. Even though the wizard now allows me to set a proxy server, it's not enabled after I installed my package.

Previous versions of the IEAK only allowed corporate intranets to use a proxy server. The current version allows ISPs to use proxy, however for ISPs using an Internet Signup Server, proxy is disabled in the .INS file that is included in the self-extracting packages build by the wizard. This avoids the necessity of an additional proxy connection to your signup server. The INSTALL.INS file placed in the root directory of the build directory will have the correct settings to enable proxy. You should copy this file to the ACC2.INS template file on your signup server, so that proxy will be enabled during the signup process.