Details and technical assistance for the PC User Offline CD-ROM.
Disclaimer
We have tested this CD-ROM extensively and taken every care to scan for viruses and to ensure all the programs work properly. However, Australian PC User cannot guarantee that all the software on the CD will install and run. Some games, in particular, can be finicky about what hardware and operating system they work with.
Australian PC User cannot be held responsible for any damage to your system caused directly or indirectly by any software on the PC User Offline disc.
Australian PC User cannot provide tech support for any of the third-party software on PC User Offline.
Users follow the Internet links on the CD-ROM at their own risk. Australian PC User takes no responsibility for any offensive sites that the user might encounter.
About our CD-ROM
The PC User Offline CD-ROM runs entirely from a Web browser. You do not have to be on the Internet to use a Web browser and therefore view the contents of the CD and install the CD's software. You don't even have to have Web browser installed on your computer as a version Microsoft's Internet Explorer has been pre-installed directly on the CD.
Wherever possible hotlinks are provided that allow you to install or run the software directly from the browser interface -- if you are using a recent version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (unfortunately, Netscape Navigator currently does not allow this).
As well as the 600Mb or so of software on this CD, we have provided a sneak preview of our Web site. From these pages, you can go to PC User Online or one of the many other Web sites hyperlinked on the CD for the latest information (if you have an Internet connection, of course). Jumping to our Web site from the PC User Offline Web pages also means that you don't have to download many of the graphics on our Web site -- meaning it will load faster.
System requirements
The PC User Offline CD-ROM will run on any computer that reads DOS discs and has a CD-ROM drive.
However, to run PC User Offline comfortably you need at least a 486DX2/66 with 8Mb of RAM, a double-speed CD reader, video running at 640 by 480 or 800 by 600 resolution at least at 256 colours (16-bit or 24-bit colour is recommended), and running Windows 3.1x or 95.
The Web pages on PC User Offline are best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or later, with the Shockwave plug-in, and have also been tested with Netscape Navigator 3.0. We cannot guarantee it will look good in any other browser.
Individual programs and demos included on the disc have their own system requirements, which may be higher.
Installation
Windows 95 users: Select Run from the Start button menu, then Browse and locate your CD-ROM drive. Double click the file SETUP.EXE in the root directory of your CD-ROM drive (usually D:).
Windows 3.1 users: Select Program Manager's File menu, then Run, Browse and locate your CD-ROM drive. Double click the file SETUP.EXE in the root directory of your CD-ROM drive (usually D:).
All Windows users: Now select Full Install, and leave the installation path as your WINDOWS directory.
This will install a `PC User Offline' icon in a Windows 95 Start button folder or in a Windows 3.1 Program Manager group. This is the only file installed on your hard disk.
Double-clicking on the PC User Offline icon will load the pre-installed version of Microsoft Internet Explorer on our CD, which in turn will automatically load the Shockwave plug-in and the `home page' on our CD.
Previous PC User Offline users. If you have already installed a PC User Offline icon from one of our March 1997 or later CDs, you don't have to run the Setup routine again. The PC User Offline icon will allow you to browse this and future PC User CDs at any time.
If you have installed one of our CDs from February 1997 or before, you will need to re-run the Setup routine as per the above instructions. This is because we changed the interface for browsing our CDs. (We thought the previous version was great but it was a little too unreliable).
First-time users
You can navigate our pages by clicking on our menus (see Browsing PC User Offline) and many other highlighted words and graphics. Whenever your mouse cursor turns into a pointing finger you can click on that item to go to a relevant page, either on our CD or -- where you see a full Internet address -- on the Net (if you have Internet access, of course).
Then there are the Web browser's main navigation buttons (above our page, right up the top). Of these, the Back button is perhaps the most useful, taking you back to the last page viewed. For a more details on how to use Web browsers and the Net in general click here to view our Web basics tutorial.
Experienced Users
In the root directory of the CD you will find the file contents.txt. This provides a listing of all the software on this month's CD. This text file can be loaded into any Word processor, Windows Write, WordPad or Notepad, and printed out as a hard copy record of the CD's contents.
It can also be used as a guide if you want to bypass our Browser interface and simply explore the CD using a File Manager or Windows 95 Explorer.
The navigation bar: When browsing any of our Web pages you will see a menu near the top of the page and another sub-menu down the left-hand side of the page. The main menu, the animated navigation bar of tabbed buttons near the top of the page, is common across all the pages on our CD and Web site. The buttons include:
- Software: This is the main section relevant to PC User Offline, where you'll find all the software available on the CD-ROM.
- What's New: On our Web site, this section contains all the latest news and sneak previews of next month's magazine and CD. On our CD, What's New is a gateway to our Web site.
- Net Guides: This is a collection of Internet tutorials for everyone from beginners to more advanced users wanting to go beyond Web browsing.
- Web Workshop: Our series of tutorials for Web authors.
- About PC User: Details about your favourite magazine.
Where's the navigation bar? The above navigation bar requires the Shockwave plug-in, which is pre-installed by default with the on-CD version of Microsoft Internet Explorer. If you don't see this navigation bar, you are probably using a browser without the Shockwave plug-in. See Using your own browser for details on how to install Shockwave.
The sub-menus: Each of the above sections has its own sub-menu -- the highlighted list down the left-hand side of the page. For example, in the Software section, we have Games, Educational Software, General & Business Applications, Online Tools, Utilities, Updates & Support Files, and PC User Interactive. (All of these should be self-explanatory, with the possible exception of PC User Interactive, which includes the multimedia tutorials created by our writers and other exclusive PC User stuff.)
To make it easier for you to navigate, some sub-menus have a further level (a sub-sub-menu, if you like) rather than a very long list of menu items.
The utility buttons: Just above each sub-menu are the utility buttons, which include:
Search: On our CD, this launches Isys HindSite,
an Australian product which is, as far as we know, the
only way to search Web pages on a CD. For more details on
how to search for a topic, see our Search guide.
Help: Takes you to this Help page.
Home: This takes you back to the main home page
from wherever you `are' on the CD.
Music buttons: These buttons allow you to change
music tracks and the volume.
Wherever possible we have unzipped all software and provided a hyperlink that will run its setup program directly or even run the actual program straight off the CD -- if you are using the CD's default browser or another recent version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (Netscape Navigator users see Using your own browser).
Some programs, however, do not come with an installation program and won't run directly from the CD or from within a Web browser. In these cases you will need to launch Windows 95's Explorer or Windows 3.1's File Manager so you can copy the files to your hard disk manually. Check out the Readme file accompanying any such program to see if there are any special installation instructions.
Other programs (especially DOS games) may not install or run correctly under Windows -- even Windows 95. So while we may provide a hyperlink to run or install a DOS program, we cannot guarantee this will work on all systems. If this happens on your system we recommend you exit to DOS mode and try from there.
Using your own browser
The PC User Offline icon installed on your system runs an on-CD version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) so that you don't have to install a Web browser on your hard disk to use our CD. This is the latest 16-bit version of IE for Windows 3.1 and will therefore run under Windows 3.1, 3.11 or Windows 95. Also pre-installed on the CD is the Shockwave plug-in.
However, you may want to use another browser:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 for Win 95 or later: If you use Windows 95 you may want to use the 32-bit version of IE for even better performance. Make sure, however, you have the Shockwave plug-in installed too. Both are available for installation from our CD:
Once you have IE and Shockwave installed, just use IE's File, Open menu, select Browse then find the file INDEX.HTM in the OFFLINE folder, and load it. You can then add this to your Favourite Places and it will work with this and future CDs.
Netscape Navigator 3.0 or later: Any of the recent versions of Navigator will view the pages on the CD just fine. However, Navigator currently will not execute the EXE files on the CD, so you will not be able to install or run any software directly from the Web pages.
If you're still keen to use Navigator, we have provided the path to each program's main EXE file in each review so that you can use a file manager such as Window 95's Explorer to install or run the program.
Again, make sure you have the Shockwave plug-in installed -- details on how to install Navigator and Shockwave from our CD are in the Online Tools page. Once installed, use Navigator's Open menu command to launch the INDEX.HTM file in the OFFLINE directory on our CD, then Bookmark this file for future use.
Having said this, we still recommend that you use the on-CD version of IE -- you'll find installing software much easier. Remember, IE is not installed on your hard disk. Just select `No' when asked whether you want IE as your default browser, and you can keep Navigator as you Web browser.
Other browsers: Well, you may be able to use an older browser at a pinch, but our pages won't look good, and, with the on-CD version of IE so easily available, why would you bother?
Known problems
Okay, here's where we come clean. Here are the potential problems with our CD-ROM that we know about:
- If you click an image thumbnail to view the full size version, but receive an error message that the path is incorrect and the file cannot be found, this may be because your CD-ROM drive is too slow for the on-disc browser to load the image. In this case we recommend you install the appropriate version of MS Internet Explorer (for Windows 3.1 or Win95) to your hard disk and use this. You will find these in the Online Tools page on the CD. Or you can install it from the present browser in the Software\Online Tools section.
Beta testers, please!
We've worked hard testing and retesting this CD-ROM, however we won't pretend that it's perfect. Software can always be improved -- and we'd like to do so as soon as possible. Please contact us if you've found a problem, or even if you have some suggestions.
Tech support, broken discs, etc
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