Netscape 7.1 Windows system requirements:
Operating Systems: Windows 98, 98SE, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP (home or pro).

(BARE) Minimum Hardware:
Pentium 233 MHz
64 MB RAM
52 MB hard drive space

Installing Netscape 7.1 is straightforward.

• First you must acquire the installation program. It is called NSSetup.exe and may be downloaded from:
  http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp
  This is a pretty large program (about 30 Meg), so be prepared for a lengthy download. Make a note of which directory the file is being saved to.
• After NSSetup.exe has been downloaded, good practices suggest performing a cold boot (shut down the computer, leave it off for at least ten seconds, turn it back on).
• Run the NSSetup.exe program by doubleclicking on it.
• At the Welcome screen, click the "Next" button.
• The License Agreement appears. Read it (!) and click the "Accept" button.
• The Setup Type screen appears. This gives you three installation options:
  • Recommended: Installs most commonly needed options.
  • Full: Installs the entire program including Java and a selection of language packages.
  • Custom: Lets you pick and choose options, and is especially useful if you want one or more specific language packages.
  Select the "Recommended" radio button.
  Accept the default "Destination Directory".
  You may wish to click on the "Read Me" button to read the Read-me file (a good idea).
  After you finish reading the Read-me file, close that window to return to the Setup Type screen.
  Click the "Next" button to continue installing Netscape.
• The Select Additional Components screen appears. Check only the "Sun Java 2" checkbox and click the "Next" button.
• The Quick Launch screen appears. Uncheck the Quick Launch checkbox then click the "Next" button.
• The Additional Options screen appears. Uncheck the "Make Netscape.com my homepage" checkbox, and check the "Save installer files locally" checkbox.
  Accept the default destination directory.
  Do nothing with the "Proxy Settings" button.
  Click the "Next" button.
• The Start Install screen appears. Click the "Install" button.
  Installation may take several minutes depending upon your individual computer. After installation is complete, Netscape 7.1 will open.

Another good souce of information is The Netscape Unofficial FAQ ( http://www.ufaq.org/ ).

(Note: after installing Netscape, you will have to delete some AOL and IM shortcuts from the desktop and the Start button. Just rightclick on the undesired items then click on "Delete"; you will be informed that you are just deleting the shortcut, that you are not uninstalling the program.)

This section will show screencaps of most settings windows available in Netscape 7.1. Please note that many of the options shown here are personal preferences and are not required for proper running of Netscape.
Required settings will be designated by *REQUIRED*.

The settings will be presented here slightly out of order because Netscape always wants to open the second category (Navigator) when entering the Preferences.

If you wish to jump directly to a specific category, click on the appropriate link below:
(An asterisk [*] after a link indicates that settings information is not provided.)

• Appearance
• Navigator
• Composer [*]
• Mail & Newsgroups
• Instant Messenger [*]
• ICQ [*]
• Privacy & Security
• Advanced
• Mail & Newsgroup Account Settings
• Newsgroup Settings
• Outgoing Server (SMTP) Settings
• Junk Mail Controls...

The settings for Netscape are accessed by clicking on menu item "Edit" then "Preferences":

00-Ep.gif


After you click on Edit -> Preferences, you will always be taken to the following window; These are good recommended settings, though you may want a different home page.

01-EpNav.gif
Observe the small triagles to the left of "Appearance", "Navigator", "Composer", etc. These triangles indicate that there are sub-categories; when the triangle points to the right, the sub-categories are "collapsed" (not visible), when the triangle points down, the sub-categories are "expanded" (visible).
You may expand or collapse a given category by either single clicking on the triangle or by double clicking on the category itself.


These settings are fine.

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These settings are fine.

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These settings are fine.

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These settings are fine.

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These settings are fine.

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These settings are fine. Tabbed browsing is a very cool feature once you get the hang of it.

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These settings are fine (The Download Manager is fairly useless).

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Collapse "Navigator" and expand "Appearance".

These settings are fine. If you want to have your email client open and begin to download your email every time you open Netscape, you should check "Mail&Newsgroups";
however, I don't recommend it because once the mail starts, you're sort of committed to waiting for it however long it takes.
I find it better to download my mail when I want to, not always every time I open Netscape.

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These settings work okay for my XP machine with my display set at 800x600.
Depending upon how you have your resolution set and your personal tastes, you might want to play with these a bit.

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I changed the link colors to fit my tastes. Defaults are fine.

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"Modern" is the roundy Fisher-Price appearance (used in these screencaps);
"Classic" is the appearance of Netscape 4.x (more square, less toyish).

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This has to do with the language of the menus, dialog boxes, etc.
You can download other languages (Spanish, Italian, Japanese, etc.) and select one of them if you wish.

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I am not impressed with Navigator Composer (for creating html pages) so I'm going to disregard this category.
If you want to write html, get a good html editor or better yet, learn how to write it in the raw. :)

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This category deals with the appearance and handling of your incoming and outgoing emails, not with the actual technical requirements (userid, servers, etc). To see the section on changing the technical settings, click here.
The settings on this screencap are recommended, particularly the "Confirm when moving folders to the Trash" checkbox.

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These settings are fine; again, personal taste here.

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These settings are fine; again, personal taste here. If you like smileys :) to look like happy faces, check the "Display emoticons as graphics" checkbox.

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These settings are fine; again, personal taste here.

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These settings are fine; again, personal taste here.

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These settings are fine.

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These settings are fine. A rather useless feature.

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These settings are fine. Personally, I find it a vague invasion of privacy when I receive an email which demands a return receipt; therefore I never request one.

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The version of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) which is installed with Netscape is pretty crippled.
If you use AIM on any regular basis, it is strongly recommended that you download the most current version directly from http://www.aim.com/ and install it on top of whatever ships with Netscape.
In any event, you do not want it to "Launch Automatically at system start".

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I am unfamiliar with ICQ so I will not comment on any of these settings.

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These settings are recommended to minimize websites from sharing cookie information.

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These settings are fine.

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These settings can be a bit more problematic. Some sites may require "pop-ups" (windows which open independently from the existing browser session) to fulfill some function.
If you visit on-line shopping, banking, etc sites, you may have to experiment a little to make them work.
However, with these settings I can do on-line banking and shopping. I block pop-up advertising using another program (zoneAlarmPro).

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I am not comfortable having any programs fill out forms for me, so this is disabled.

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Likewise, I am not comfortable having any programs fill in my passwords for me, so this too is disabled.

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Since I do not use the form or password saving features, I don't use this either.

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If you visit secure and encrypted sites on any regular basis, it's a good idea to be aware of the status (encrypted, not encrypted, low-grade encryption) of those sites.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users.
It is strongly recommended that you have up-to-date Anti-Virus protection in any event; however, if you do not, uncheck "Enable native object scripting".
Better yet, get anti-virus software and keep it up-to-date.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users, some nice features here.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users.

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These settings are *REQUIRED* for all non-SlipStream users of LAFN.
If you are using SlipStream, these settings will be changed automatically by the SlipStream client program.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users. Generally it is better to install software manually and consciously.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users. Personal preference.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users. It is assumed that most users have personal favorite programs for viewing images.

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These settings should be sufficient for most users. Personal preference.

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This concludes Navigator Edit -> Preferences settings.

Next we have to verify the email account settings.

To do so, we have to run the email client. There are three ways to do this:

• Click on the "Mail" button in the personal toolbar (below the navigation buttons).
• Click on menu item "Window" then "Mail & Newsgroups".
• Click on the small icon which looks like the back of an envelope in the lower left portion of the Navigator window.

Click on menu item "Edit" then "Mail & Newsgroup Account Settings...".
The settings shown ("Account Name:", "Your Name:", "Email Address:") are *REQUIRED*.
If you wish to compose outgoing email messages in html, check the checkbox at the bottom.

44-Emn.gif


The following settings are *REQUIRED*:

• The Server Name must be lower case "mail.lafn.org" (no double quotes).
• The User Name must be your userid (not your email address).
• The Port number will change from 110 to 995 when you check the "Use Secure connection (SSL)" checkbox.
• The "Leave messages on server" must be unchecked.

• The Server Name must be lower case "smtp.lafn.org" (no double quotes).
• The Port number may be 25 or 26.
• "Use name and password" must be checked.
• The User Name must be your userid (not your email address).

This page last updated: May 23, 2004 0530 pdt
jtm