When opening the Ninemsn home page in MSN Explorer a runtime error appears saying ?Line 1532. Error: Object expected? and asking whether I would like to debug the problem. As I have no idea how to debug, I click “No” and continue working in MSN Explorer. However, when visiting other web pages different runtime errors also appear. Occasionally an informative message appears saying that the problem is related to MSN Explorer and that MSN Explorer needs to be upgraded. However, I cannot find how to download the latest version of this software from the MSN website. How can I stop these runtime errors from appearing?

Runtime errors are generally caused when there is a script within the web page that has errors or your web browser doesn’t understand. Many web pages include a scripting language called JavaScript. Such scripting is primarily used to instruct the web browser to perform certain operations in response to user input. For example, if you click the navigation bar on the Ninemsn web front page for News, Sport, Money, Entertainment, etc. different content appears. The triggering of content is being handled through Javascript functions. However, if there is a Javascript instruction which the web page does not understand, a runtime error appears. This is often the case when there is an error in the Javascript code. Despite the fact that the message asks whether you would like to debug the error, there is nothing you can do to fix any identified errors because the scripting is on the web page (which you cannot change). Therefore, the only real reason for the debug option is in case you have written some code which has errors, and you would like to debug the code.

I do not get any runtime errors when visiting the Ninemsn page, and it is unlikely that the page contains errors given the popularity of the page (meaning that any such errors would be quickly rectified and fixed). Furthermore, you are also receiving similar errors on other web pages. This indicates that the problem is most likely not with the web pages, but is instead related to your web browser. You are using the MSN Explorer web browser, which is a browser that shipped with Windows XP. MSN Explorer is essentially a graphic intense version of Internet Explorer, and unfortunately you cannot update this browser to the latest version since the new versions are only available when you have MSN Internet Access. Therefore, the version you are currently running may be old and not support the scripting functions in these web pages, thus causing the runtime errors.

Therefore, I suggest that you change web browsers to one that is still supported. You have several options in this respect. First, you could use Microsoft Internet Explorer, which also ships with Windows XP. This would be the most similar browser to MSN Explorer, since MSN Explorer was essentially Internet Explorer with a much more graphic-intense interface. The latest version of Internet Explorer is version 7, and this should automatically download to your computer (if not already) when you next update Windows using Windows Update (windowsupdate.microsoft.com).

You could also try an alternative web browser. The web browser which I favour is Mozilla Firefox. This is a free open-source browser which is very quick and fast, and also has excellent features and an easy to use interface. Mozilla Firefox is available for free download from www.mozilla.com/firefox .

One problem which you may encounter when making the transition between MSN Explorer and another web browser is exporting your Favorites from MSN Explorer. Unfortunately, MSN Explorer does not store the Favorites in a format which can be used by other web browsers. So, you will need to convert the Favorites into a format which can be accepted by Internet Explorer or Firefox. As a first step, open Windows Explorer or My Computer. The Favorites file is located in a hidden location, so you will first need to enable the display of hidden files and folders and the display of file extensions, so you can identify the correct file. Go to the “Tools” menu > “Folder Options”. In the window that appears, click the “View” tab and enable “Show hidden files and folders” and disable (untick) “Hide extensions for known file types”. Click OK to save and close the settings. Within the Windows Explorer or My Computer window, navigate to the following location: C:Documents and SettingsApplication DataMSN…UserData{ABCD…1234…}. Obviously the dots within the path are replaced with particular values, depending on your computer configuration. Within this location you should see a file named ?favorites.xml?. Once found, copy this file to the Windows desktop. This means that we will only be working on a copy of the file, as opposed to the original file, and should things go wrong we don’t corrupt the original version of the file.

Next, the file must be converted into a format which can be imported into Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. MainSoft provides a free utility called “MSN Favorites Export Toolkit” which performs this exact function. Visit their website and download the utility: www.mainsoft.fr/en/downloads.htm . Once downloaded, extract the ?MsnFav.zip? file containing the utility. Open the ?readme.txt? and follow the instructions to covert the ?favorites.xml? file into a usable format, and then import into Internet Explorer.

The readme file does not contain instructions should you wish to import the Favorites into Firefox, but this is a relatively simple operation. In Firefox, go to the “Bookmarks” menu > “Organize Bookmarks”. In the Bookmarks Manager window that appears, click the “File” menu > “Import”. From the Import Wizard window select “From File” and click “Next”. Find the newly created ?bookmark.htm? file then select the file and click “Open”. The Favorites should be imported into Firefox. You can now close the Bookmarks Manager window and access the Favorites through the Firefox “Bookmarks” menu.