I recently purchased a new computer running Windows Vista. Being a long time user of Netscape I installed the latest version (8.1.3). However, Internet Explorer came preinstalled on the PC and it overrides my attempts to specify Netscape as the default browser. Clicking a link within a document or email opens Internet Explorer, even though Netscape is open and is set as the default browser. How can I stop Internet Explorer, short of uninstalling it?

This behaviour is symptomatic of Netscape not yet fully supporting Windows Vista. I encountered the same problem when installing Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird on my computer when Windows Vista was initially released at the beginning of this year, and these products did not yet fully support Vista. Despite setting Firefox and Thunderbird as the default web browser and email client (respectively) the computer still defaulted to Internet Explorer and Windows Mail. Looking at the Netscape Navigator system requirements website (browser.netscape.com/sysreqs) there does not seem to be any details of Windows Vista compatibility, as the recommended configuration for Netscape is still Windows XP. I could also not find any other information on Vista compatibility of Netscape. If any other readers know any additional information in this regard then please write in with your comments.

Without any information on the supportability of Netscape within Windows Vista this is unfortunately an unresolved problem at this point in time. You cannot uninstall Internet Explorer from Windows Vista, since this is a key component of the operating system and cannot be uninstalled (much like Internet Explorer in Windows XP also cannot be uninstalled). However, if you are looking for an alternative web browser then perhaps you could try Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.com/firefox). This is an excellent free, open source web browser which does officially support Windows Vista and is well worth a try.