Windows Software

Here’s some windows software I’ve used or evaluated. Be sure to check out the sub-pages (on the right) for additional software.

FileZilla FTP Client and Server

Visit FileZilla Website
The client and server are two separate programs. I run them on my laptop.
Read about the install here.

Comments and Observations

1. I had problems connecting from my Mac (using fetch). I had configured the Windows firewall to allow the FTP port. When the connection went to passive mode the OS X firewall would reject the connection.

   I tried to limit the ports FileZilla would use but this didn’t seem to work as FileZilla didn’t seem to stay withing that port range.

   Finally I added the FileZilla server program to the Windows Firewall exclusions in addition to the FTP port and this cleared the problem.

2. I use the FTP server to synchronize directories. When doing the first synchronization (first run after files were copied to the server) the Fetch client would run through long lists of files already up to date on the server. These are simple date checks, no data copies. The Fetch client would report that the server dropped the connection. The server log would show it dropped the connection due to inactivity. I disabled the inactivity timeout. I was 2 minutes which is about how long the check would run before dropping. The server is only used by me and the laptop shuts down when not in use so I’m not worried about inactive connections using resources.

Firefox Web Browser

Visit Firefox Website
I use Firefox as my primary browser on OS X, Windows and Linux.
Installation of version 2 on Windows XP and OS X is covered here.

Internet Explorer 7

Visit Website

I write about the installation here.

The installation log is available at this link: IE7InstallLog

Clicking on "New" to create a new Doc in Google docs and then trying to change the title results in a message "This website is using a scripted window to ask you for information. If you trust this website , click here to allow scripted windows." I clicked there and my only choice was to temporarily allow, which I did. I then clicked the Title again and changed it.

In Google Docs, when clicking a star on the main page to deselect it for a document causes IE 7 to clock for about a minute until it returns a error message “Unable to connect to server, please try again”. Any other Google Docs windows/tabs also lose the connection to the server. A refresh won’t connect. Have to close the window and re-open it. Using Firefox on the same PC, with the same docs, and at the same time works fine.

When IE 7 is being shutdown and multiple tabs are open there is a prompt that asks if you want to re-open the same tabs the next time IE is opened. This prompt can be turned off.

IE 7 is not my primary browser, even on Windows. But if I’m going to run IE it might as well be the latest version which is IE 7.