Problem with Firefox 1.5.0.10+ and SeaMonkey on Windows 95

[Andrew T.]

Hi all,

Recently (after a botched stint involving multiple hard drives and dual booting; although the story's beside the point), I reinstalled Windows 95 OSR2 on my computer system.

After having restored most of the library updates and software titles I had on hand, I discovered that "Could not initialize the browser security component" dialogues and related errors appeared when running Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey. After a bit of analysis and experimentation, I discovered that the errors appeared only when running Firefox 1.5.0.10 and subsequent versions, and their Gecko 1.8.0.10+ equivalents: Firefox 1.5.0.9 worked fine.

The closest thing to a hint I've found is this: "If you're on Windows 98 or ME and SSL no longer works after updating to Firefox 2.0.0.2 or later, Firefox 1.5.0.10 or later 1.5 builds, and Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 and later 1.5 builds, you may be able to fix it by installing IE 6.0 SP1." Obviously, I won't be doing that...and not only because it involves 98+ only software.

So: What exactly is keeping Firefox and its kin from working right, and why precisely would IE 6.0 SP1 supposedly rectify the problems? Before the reinstall I could run Firefox 1.5.0.10-12 and SeaMonkey 1.1 on Windows 95 OSR2 without incident, but I'm sure some extra DLLs had creeped on in the meantime when I wasn't looking...

[Steven W]

Curious, what version of IE do you have installed now?

Just a couple of thoughts you should probably get (if you don't already have):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en (DUN 1.3 update; I think you must have this to install ver 1.4)

http://download.microsoft.com/download/win...us/dun14-95.exe (DUN 1.4)

http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownlo...en/rootsupd.exe (root certificate update; assuming this is the latest)

(Sockets 2 update) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/182108

http://browsers.evolt.org/download.php?/ie...SP2/ie55sp2.exe (IE 5.5 sp2)

(Updates for IE 5.5 sp2) http://www.mdgx.com/ietoy.htm#IE55

If you're planning to use the Active Desktop, I strongly recommend install IE 4 and connecting it to the net once before upgrading to a new version of IE. (http://browsers.evolt.org/download.php?/ie/32bit/4.01_SP2/ie401sp2.exe)

Edited July 29, 2008 by Steven W

[BenoitRen]

Hello Andrew! As a fellow Windows 95 user without IE, I had run into this issue when testing SeaMonkey 1.1.3. I filed a bug for it and helped out with its resolution. I even posted about it on MSFN back then.

In short, IE3 installs CAPI, the cryptography component, which is why we don't have it. You'll need to extract RSABASE.DLL and SIGRES.EXE from the cab files to the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory and register RSABASE.DLL using regsvr32. That should register the base provider and resolve the issue.

[Andrew T.]

Thanks...that did the trick! B)

Fortunately I had the contents of my old \windows\system folder backed up, so finding the appropriate files was a snap.