I saw that too. I can't believe people are so excited about a free web based email service.

Okay, here's something interesting. I just wrote a little program to use the URLDownloadToFile windows API call and get its return error. The error is -2146697208 which translates into hex FFFFFFFF 800C0008.

So I search the MS KB on 800C0008 and get this. Which seems to have no bearing at all on what my problem is. Darn. So I'm still stumped.

or beanie baby collectors

I worked with a woman that I introduced to eBay back in '96. She made over $4k on those dumb things in one bulk sale of all the ones she bought on eBay after she got bored of buying them. She swore off eBay forever after that.

But how much did she spend buying them

Tony,

First, what version IE is it and second, does it have XML capabilities different than the boxes that work?

But how much did she spend buying them

Well she netted 4K, I think it was around $2k spent to obtain them. I think she realized that the chance for a profit margin like that wasn't going to be around long, so she bailed.

First, what version IE is it

does it have XML capabilities different than the boxes that work?

Hm. Interesting question. I notice that "add/remove programs" lists "MSXML 4.0 SP2 Parser and SDK", but I don't understand why I would have a separate XML parser installed on this system since IE6 has XML parsing built-in. I would understand if I were running IE5, but I'm not.

Yowza. I just got five more invitations to hand out. So much for limited supply. Who's left here who still wants a Gmail invitation?

Who's left here who still wants a Gmail invitation?

Me please ;-)

If there are any left going spare after all the earlier requests...

I need to know your present e-mail address. It's not in your profile.

I've sent it in a PM. Thanks.

EDIT: All out of invites for now

Me me me!!!

PM'ed you my address.

Okay, I'm down to one invitation left, and it looks like Rob has another five. Who else still wants one?

Yus please.

empeg@cloudy.org.uk

Cheers,

Paul.

Okay, my invitations are all gone now. Hopefully, we've got enough people left with invitations to take care of everybody.

Are there any more? I'd love one.

Right. I'm thinking it has to do with the ole IE XML plug-in that was in use before XML parsing was added to IE.

You've had that machine for a while so the XML parser is probably legacy at this point. Try getting rid of it.

I'm thinking it has to do with the ole IE XML plug-in that was in use before XML parsing was added to IE.

Except I don't have that plugin on my work system, and I get the same behavior at work. Or, at least, that plug-in isn't listed in Add/Remove programs on my work system. And for that matter, I don't know what it's doing on my home system because I'm sure I built that home system (fresh-installed Win2K) post-IE6 and wouldn't have needed to install it.

Also, when I use the API call "URLDownloadToFile" which should just grab whatever's at a given URL and save that to a file (no parsing or redirecting), I get an error return instantly (the one I listed above), without any parsing going on.

Seems the only common thread to all the problems is....well....you

Oh, that point hasn't been lost on me. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what exactly I do to all of my systems that could cause this. I'm currently working on setting up my test box with a fresh install of Win2K so that I can start adding crap and tweaking it to resemble my current system, and finding out at which point it breaks.

Perhaps bots aren't allowed to use GMail . . .

Argh, bot-detector code. Must circumvent...

I've got 3 to give away. First 3 people to PM me get them...

Edit: 0 Left

Anyone know of anyplace on a windows system besides the HOSTS file that could screw up DNS resolution of a given address? For instance, do Windows PCs have any sort of local DNS caching?

Wow, they just gave me five more invitations. Send me PMs or whatever.

"ipconfig /flushdns" will flush the DNS resolver cache. I doubt it will fix the problem you're having though.

Correct, didn't solve the problem, but thanks for that reminder (I'd forgotten that command).

Me!