Sorry about the delay in responding - I having been making sure that I can speak
for SPRY in this matter. Here's the official scoop:
"There have been rumors on the Internet of CompuServe NetLauncher "destroying"
other competitive browsers. This is not true.
CompuServe NetLauncher will not destroy other Web browsers on your machine.
Instead, it renames existing winsock.dll files in order to shorten the
installation process for new Internet users. <<That is to say, it will not need
to add anything to the user's PATH. -Chris>> When installing NetLauncher, there
is a dialog box alerting the user that their winsock.dll files will be renamed.
Following is another dialog box that requires confirmation of their knowledge
that their WinSock files will be changed.
NetLauncher proceeds to rename the other winsock.dlls to winsock.000,
winsock.001, etc. If the user wants to reactivate their other winsocks, all
they need to do is rename the CompuServe winsock.dll to something else (e.g.
winsock.cis) and name the desired winsock.00? to winsock.dll."
<end official message>
In addition, some winsock DLLs implement non-standard extensions to the WinSock
specification, which the applications shipped by some vendors require. For
example, the winsock shipped in Windows 95 contains proprietary interface
components, which means that the winsock shipped with NetLauncher will cause
some applications (which depend on this proprietary API) to fail to work
properly. The winsock shipped with NetLauncher will run all WinSock-compliant
applications.
-Chris Wilson
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Chris Wilson Spry, Inc.
WWW Technology Lead 316 Occidental Avenue S. 2nd Floor
Email: cwilson@spry.com Seattle, WA 98104
Phone: (206) 447-0300 FAX: (206) 447-9008
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