I'm not sure if any of the FAQs cover the matter of getting the status bar to show up consistently in Internet Explorer. I do know that it has been discussed in more than one thread, with quite a bit of argument about what works and what doesn't. I'll tell you what has worked for me on every installation of WinXP since RC2. Shut down ALL instances of Internet Explorer AND Windows Explorer. Start a single instance of Windows Explorer. Turn on the Status Bar. Go to the Folder Options dialog under the Tools menu. On the View tab of the dialog click the Apply to All Folders button, then OK your way out of the dialog. I've seen messages from some users who claim that this doesn't work. I don't believe there was enough data in any of the threads to be sure if a) the people for whom this procedure wasn't working were really following it precisely, and b) there might be significant configuration differences between systems on which the technique worked and those on which it didn't work.
Regarding the View Source function in IE, I've noticed a number of messages about this, too. In NT 4.0 I used to see this on system in which them Temp system variable had been screwed up. IE used to be hard-coded to stick a copy of the page in the temp directory and to use Notepad to read it from there. If the Temp variable was altered and / or the directory had been eliminated the View Source function would fail -- without any error message or any other telltale. I haven't seen the phenomenon on IE 5.x and up, and I haven't seen it on Win2K or WinXP. I've suggested the Temp variable issue a couple of times to people who were reporting the problem under these later browser and OS versions, but the messages I received indicated no soap with my suggestion. So, I'm going to suggest something kind of corny that just might work. If you have, or can get, a copy of TweakUI for Windows XP you might go into its Internet Explorer section. There's a place there where you can designate an executable for View Source. I played with TweakUI for WinXP for a bit and noticed that feature. I figure it just might fix your issue, if you're lucky.
You should note that TweakUI for WinXP has been withdrawn by Microsoft. It has been unavailable on their site for a few weeks now. I understand that they had indicated that it would be re-released some time in January, but that now it has been postponed until "the spring". That makes me think there may be problems with it, but my wife and a couple of acquaintances use the applet extensively. We've noticed no untoward behaviors on their systems. I don't know where you can download it at this point. If you can't find it, I'll be glad to send it to you. The version we have here is "2.00.0.0".
I hope you get these issues fixed. A recalcitrant tool can be a real thorn in the side when you're doing design work.
- Collin
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