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Microsoft Chat README
December 1997
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(c) Copyright Microsoft Corporation, 1997
This document provides information to supplement the Microsoft Chat Web
page. The Frequently Asked Questions section on the Web contains more
up-to-date information. You can access this Web page by clicking the
Help menu, clicking Microsoft On The Web, and then clicking Frequently
Asked Questions.
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How to Use This Document
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To view Readme.txt on screen in Notepad, maximize the Notepad window.
To print Readme.txt, open it in Notepad or another word processor, and
then use the Print command on the File menu.
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CONTENTS
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1. Supported Configurations/Platforms
2. Connecting to Other IRC Chat Rooms
3. Support Information for Microsoft Chat
4. Frequently Asked Questions
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1. Supported Configurations/Platforms
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Microsoft Chat currently runs under Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0.
Microsoft Chat requires the following minimum configuration:
- A 486 processor
- 8 MB of RAM
- 256-color video
- A 9600-baud modem
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2. Connecting to Other IRC Chat Rooms
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If you want to connect to an IRC chat server that you already know
about, expand the Connect dialog box, and then type the server address
and channel name--for example, you might type the following:
mschat1.msn.com, #Comic_Chat.
Microsoft Chat servers currently support the following channels:
mschat1.msn.com, #Comic_Chat
mschat1.msn.com, #Comic_Help
mschat1.msn.com, #Newbies
mschat1.msn.com, #Pet_Chat
mschat1.msn.com, #Sports_Chat
mschat2.msn.com, #Family_Chat
mschat2.msn.com, #Internet_Chat
mschat2.msn.com, #Politics_Chat
mschat2.msn.com, #Singles_Chat
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3. Support Information for Microsoft Chat
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For support issues regarding Microsoft Chat, please refer to the support.txt located in
the same directory as the Microsoft Chat readme.txt.
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4. Frequently Asked Questions
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Q. Will you be updating Microsoft Chat?
A. We will update our Web site frequently. To view the updates, click
the Help menu, click Microsoft On The Web, and then click Free Stuff.
Q. How do I connect to other IRC chat rooms or channels?
A. If you want to connect to an IRC chat room or channel that you
already know about, carry out the following steps:
1. If you are running with Internet Explorer 3.0 or 4.0, click the File
menu, and then click New Window.
Otherwise, you can just click New Connection.
2. In the Connect dialog box, type the following information:
- In the Server box, type the IRC server name.
The default entry is mschat1.msn.com.
Replace this with the IRC server you want to connect to.
- In the Chat room box, type the chat room name, preceded by a
number sign (#).
The default channel name is #Comic_Chat.
Q. How can I tell which version of Microsoft Chat I am running?
A. If you are running Microsoft Chat outside of Internet Explorer, click
the Help menu, and then click About Microsoft Chat. The version number
is listed at the top of the box. From within Internet Explorer, you can
click the Help menu, click Microsoft Chat Help, and then click About
Microsoft Chat.
Q. Why can't I get access to any Microsoft Chat or IRC chat rooms?
A. If you are accessing the Internet from your corporate network, you
will be able to download the Microsoft Chat program; however, most
corporate proxy servers limit access to chat rooms. If you have any
questions, please contact your system administrator or use a dial-up
analog or ISDN line to access the Internet.
Q. Can I create my own comic characters?
A. Yes, you can create characters. To install the Microsoft Chat Character
Editor click the Help menu, click Microsoft On The Web, and then
click Free Stuff.
Q. Can I create my own backgrounds?
A. Microsoft Chat supplies a limited number of backgrounds, but more will
be added soon. Backgrounds are bitmap files, which you can create with
any graphics package.
Q. How does the emotion wheel (lower right corner) work?
A. The emotion wheel enables you to manually change your character's
emotions. The center of the emotion wheel is neutral emotion. Where
there are multiple levels of emotion, the intensity of the emotion
increases as the control moves away from the center.
To see a tooltip describing each emotion, rest your mouse pointer over
one of the eight faces around the perimeter of the emotion wheel. To
change your character's emotions, drag the control (the dark dot in
the center of the emotion wheel) from the center of the emotion wheel.
Q. How can I tell characters apart when there are duplicate characters?
A. Move your mouse pointer over the character and then pause. A tooltip
appears that displays the user name and character.
Q. How do I print?
A. On the File menu, click Print, click Properties, and then click
Graphics. Change the resolution to 150 or 300 bps. This will speed
up printing and still provide high quality.
Q. How big is Microsoft Chat to download?
A. The program with its existing artwork is currently 1 MB compressed.
Q. How much space does Microsoft Chat take up?
A. The Microsoft Chat program with its existing artwork is currently 4 MB.
Upcoming artwork and character updates will increase this size.
Q. Can I uninstall Microsoft Chat?
A. Yes. To uninstall Microsoft Chat, carry out the following steps:
1. In Control Panel, double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon.
2. Click Microsoft Chat, and then follow the instructions on your
screen.
Q. Why does it say my ID is in use when I go to another chat room?
A. Nicknames (IDs) must be unique. Your connection will be refused if:
- You are already connected to a chat room on the server.
- You recently disconnected and the server has not refreshed.
- Someone else is using your nickname.
To connect, you can either choose a new nickname or make sure that
all Microsoft Chat clients have been closed and then wait a minute
and reopen Microsoft Chat.
Q. How do I get more panels across the screen?
A. There are a few things you can try:
- Increase your screen resolution. To do this, in Control Panel,
double-click the Display icon, and then click the Settings tab.
- Maximize the window.
- Move the vertical splitter to the right to make the member list
thinner.
Once you have done this, click the View menu, and then choose the
largest number of panels you can. Depending on your screen resolution
and monitor size, you can select from one to four frames.
Q. What is the difference between Microsoft Chat and IRC chat?
A. Microsoft Chat is a graphical chat client that can be used like any
text chat client on the IRC channel. Not everyone inside the channel
(chat room) needs to be using Microsoft Chat for this to work. Text
chat users will automatically be assigned a character, so the entire
chat is graphically represented to the Microsoft Chat client user.
NOTE: When you use Microsoft Chat on an IRC channel where most of
the other users are using IRC text clients, it is a good idea
to begin by clicking the Options menu and then selecting the
Don't Send Microsoft Chat Specific Information check box. This
will prevent special comics messages from being sent to the other
chat clients. After you log off Microsoft Chat, the client will
reset. The next time you log on, the check box is not selected.
Q. Why do I get an "HTTP 1.0 / 404 Object Not Found" error from the
chat room Web page?
A. The names of the room files and the names of the channels on the server
were changed. Your browser or Internet service provider may be caching
the Web pages, and you are seeing the old page which links to files that
no longer exist. To work around this problem, try refreshing the Web page
or clearing the local cache if your browser caches the file.
Q. How do I connect to mschat1.msn.com if I am using AOL as my
Internet service provider?
A. If you are using AOL to connect to the Internet, you will need to specify
port number 7000 for the following mschat servers:
- mschat1.msn.com
- mschat2.msn.com
- mschat3.msn.com
To do this, in the Connect dialog box enter the server name followed by
the port number--for example, mschat1.msn.com:7000. If this does
not work, check the Frequently Asked Questions Web page for the latest
information about this issue. You can view this Web page by clicking the
Help menu, clicking Microsoft On The Web, and then clicking Frequently
Asked Questions.
Q. I click the hot links--such as http:, mailto:--in text mode, but nothing
happens. Why does this work in comics mode but not in text mode?
A. The hot links in text mode are dependent on the rich edit functions in
Windows. Initially, the rich edit functions did not support the hot-link
capability, but Windows NT and later versions of Windows 95 added this
capability to rich edit. If you cannot use the hot links in text mode,
you can always change to comics mode and use the hot links from there.
Q. I have Comic Chat 1.0 on my computer, and after installing Microsoft
Chat 2.1, I see a shortcut to Comic Chat 1.0. Is it safe to delete the
shortcut to Comic Chat 1.0?
A. If you installed Microsoft Chat 2.1 over Comic Chat 1.0, you might see
Comic Chat 1.0 icons (as well as Microsoft Chat 2.1 icons) on the Start
menu. You can safely delete the Comic Chat 1.0 icons; this will not
affect the usability of Microsoft Chat 2.1. For more information, see
the Microsoft Knowledge Base.
Q. I have a previous version of Comic Chat on my computer. Should I
uninstall Comic Chat before installing Microsoft Chat?
A. We recommend that you uninstall any previous version of Comic Chat
before installing Microsoft Chat 2.1. However if you did not uninstall
Comic Chat before installing Microsoft Chat, you should not experience
any problems with Microsoft Chat.
Q. I am using Chat 2.1 with Russian settings and when I join a room, where
Chat 2.0 users with Russian settings are speaking, I don't recognize the
characters. Why is this?
A. We changed the character set used for chatting in Chat 2.1, when the user
has Russian settings. By using this new character set Chat 2.1 is now compatible
with most chat programs on the internet. Chat 2.0 users should upgrade
to Microsoft Chat 2.1 to become compatible with Chat 2.1 and other chat clients
on the internet.
Q. When I am chatting in rooms that don't start with a "#", Microsoft Chat 2.0 users tell
me that they don't recognize the characters I am sending them, even though we are
using the same language. Why is this?
A. On some chat servers (such as mschat.msn.com) that support creating rooms without a "#",
the character set used by Microsoft Chat 2.0 and Microsoft Chat 2.1 in these rooms may
be different.
i) If Microsoft Chat 2.1 creates a room without a "#", Microsoft Chat 2.1 user
uses unicode character set to communicate in this room. Microsoft Chat 2.0 user
might see the room listed in the room list dialog box beginning with a "%#".
If Microsoft Chat 2.0 user enters such a room, it will not be able to communicate with
Microsoft Chat 2.1, since 2.0 uses a different character set then the unicode character
set. You can find out if the user is Microsoft Chat 2.0 user, by selecting their
nickname from the member list and then selecting the Version command from the
Member menu.
ii) Microsoft Chat 2.1 will be able to enter rooms without a leading "#" created by
Microsoft Chat 2.0 users, and the two clients will be able to communicate with each other.
There are some problems with this:
a) If the user uses characters outside the range of A-Z,
Microsoft Chat 2.1 will not show these rooms correctly in the room list.
In some languages the characters will not be recognizable.
b) Microsoft Chat 2.1 will not show invitations to these rooms correctly.
The room name in the invitation might not be recognized, if the
room name contains characters not in the A-Z range.
c) Trying to join Microsoft Chat 2.0 rooms using the "Enter Room" command or
the initial "Connect Dialog" might not connect the user to the 2.0
room, but instead the user will join a 2.1 room with the same name.
If you want to join the room that the chat 2.0 user created, then you
need to join the room from the room list.
d) Certain error messages might show the room name incorrectly for 2.1 users,
if the room name was created by a 2.0 user, and it contains characters not
in the A-Z range.
Q. Why can't I join the chat room, when I click on a mic URL link?
A. Currently the mechanism for launching chat from a web page using the mic: url is
supported by Internet Explorer. If you have another browser, this launching
mechanism might not be supported.
Q. On some IRC servers I can not use some characters in my nickname and on others servers
I can use any character in my nickname. Why is this?
A. Microsoft chat 2.1 will allow you to use most characters in your nickname. However
depending on the chat server, you may not be allowed to use all characters in your
nickname and the server will return you an error. Our default server mschat.msn.com
is one of the chat servers which will allow you to use most characters including Far East
character sets.
Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.