Hi Kelly,

Interesting question?
The first answer is, that to use MSIE 4.0x in combination with a screen
reader or screen magnifier the access tool must support MSAA 1.1.
It is a public secret known by Microsoft and most developers of screen
readers and screen magnifiers that MSAA 1.1 includes a lot of bugs.
Microsoft never reported these bugs on their site.
I tried the MSAA 1.1 version and I got a lot of Windows 95 crashes.
AiSquared the maker of the Screen magnifier ZoomText Xtra that I'm using
adviced me to download a file on the Microsoft FTP site, that solved this
problem.
Microsoft asked me to remove a link to the MSAA 1.1 RDK from my homepage,
because it could cause problems to some accessibility aids they say. I also
asked them why they never report the MSAA bug and why they never communicate
with AiSquared about the new MSAA release.
If you ask Microsoft something about MSAA they don't answer your questions.
On the Microsoft site you can read that it is the best accessible Internet
browser. But at this moment there is no release of any accessibility feature
that works with MSIE 4.0x.
If you take a look at:
  ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/mscorp/enable
you can see some interesting things.
The file msaardk.EXE dated November 10 1997 contains version 1.1 of MSAA
including all the bugs.
The file MSAAQFE.ZIP dated at January 17 1998 includes 2 updated .DLL files
for MSAA 1.1 that solves some bugs in MSAA 1.1.
You also can see a file msaa12b1.exe there dated February 7 1998. This will
include version 1.2 beta 1 of MSAA.
This new version brings me to the following questions:
- What is MSAA 1.2?
- Who is testing this version?
- Are the makers of accessibility features communicating with Microsoft
about this version?
- Are the makers of accessibility features working on upgrades of their
features that support MSIE 4.0x and when will these are available?

Maybe someone can answer these interesting questions?

Peter Verhoeven
Internet : http://www.plex.nl/~pverhoe (The Screen Magnifiers Homepage)

>Hi All,
>
>As I'm sure most know there were some real troubles with Internet Explorer
>version 4 and screen readers.  This started when Microsoft took out the
>needed Active Accessibility support in the initial release.  Difficulties
>continued when Microsoft released version 4.01 with a newer version of
>Active Accessibility than that which screen readers were supporting.
>
>Aside from a joint letter discussing this issue from screen reading
>vendors and continued Microsoft press talking about Explorer being the
>champion browser for accessibility I haven't heard much in the way of
>who's actually using a version of Explorer 4 with a screen reader.
>
>I have read a few comments on some of the screen reading lists of folks
>getting the combination to kind of sort of work by modifying some of the
>screen reader supports for Explorer version 3.  However this doesn't seem
>to be any sort of permanent solution.
>
>A number of sited people have talked to me about the "greater
>accessibility" of Explorer version 4.  I'm just wondering where we are in
>terms of any screen reading users being able to take advantage of this
>functionality.  Is anyone using Explorer version 4 and a screen reader
>reliably?  If so what combination?  What do others hear from their screen
>reading vendors about support for Explorer version 4?
>
>Kelly Ford
>[log in to unmask]
>See my home page at http://www.teleport.com/~kford/index.html
>
>
>