Because Internet Explorer is a Microsoft product, it is able to use the file type information automatically set up in Windows Explorer during the installation process for most software. This means that, for most applications no additional configuration should be required to make your external viewer work, once the software has been installed on your machine.

However, since certain viewer packages may not be as cooperative as others, the following step-by-step procedure can be used to manually set up an association between Internet Explorer and an external viewer. These instructions have been tested for version 3.x of Internet Explorer running under Windows 95 only. (not for version 4.x)

• While running Internet Explorer, click on "Options..." from the "View" menu

• Choose the "Programs" tab and click the "File Types..." button in the Viewers portion of the page

• Go through the list box and look for the file type and extension you want

• If the file type does not exist, click on the "New Type" button and use the following instructions. Otherwise, if the file type and extension already exists, click on the "Edit" button and skip the following:
  • A new dialog box called "Add New File Type" should appear. In the "Description of type" text box, type in a descriptive name, ie. "Maple V R4"

  • In the "Associated extension" text box, type in the extension for the file type, ie. ".mws" for Maple V R4

  • In the "Content Type (MIME)" combo box, type in the application type and sub-type, with a forward slash between them ie. "application/maple4"

• Click the "New" button located below the "Actions" list box on the left and in the "Action" text box, type in "open" and in the "Application used to perform action" text box, type in the complete path of the executable file

  For Ghostview, the path to the executable on Polaris is:
  J:\gs\gsview.exe

  For Maple V R4, the path to the executable on Polaris is:
  J:\mp\bin.win\wmaple.exe

• Clicking on the "OK" buttons completes the configuration. Remember, if you update or move your external viewer software, you will have to repeat this configuration process.