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The above message from Microsoft is apparently being sent to large numbers of Internet Explorer users who haven't upgraded from IE 5.5 and earlier versions to IE 6.0.

Try the following link to test this on your browser:

http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=ie&ar=hotmail

If the above link takes you to the Hotmail home page, either Microsoft has fixed the problem or you were just lucky and happened to get to one of the servers that doesn't have a broken version of redir.dll.

If it takes you to page titled "Sorry, we were unable to service your request", then Microsoft hasn't yet fixed the problem.

You might want to try these links instead:

• http://go.msn.com/0/1/
• http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=ie&pver=5.5&ar=hotmail

The Scoop

I have no official explanation from anybody. In fact, not only was there no explanation at http://support.microsoft.com, there wasn't much available at http://groups.google.com, although there were discussiions about the problem.

The bottom line is that Microsoft broke some of the default IE links for users of some older versions of IE. If you aren't looking for an excuse to upgrade your browser, you can simply redefine these links.

Apparently Microsoft decided that there must be a product version parameter (&pver) specified. The default links for some browser versions don't specify this.

Fix this problem as follows (this is specific to IE 5.5, you may have to adapt them for other versions of IE):

• Right-click the shortcut that isn't working.
• Click Properties.
• From Properties, click on the "Web Document" tab.
• Insert the product version parameter, e.g. &pver=5.5 after the prd=ie paramter.
• Click on the ok button.
• You're good to go!

Topic MicrosoftBrokenRedirectLinks . { Edit | Ref-By | Attach | Diffs | r1.2 | > | r1.1 }

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Revision r1.2 - 01 Mar 2003 - 22:16 by EliMantel  Privacy Policy

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