The file mirc581s.exe contains the 16 bit mIRC version 5.81 This version is made for Windows 3.1x and Windows for Workgroups 3.1x. Released November 9th, 2000. mirc581t.exe (1133056) - 32 bit mIRC, for Windows 95, 98, 2000 and NT. mirc581s.exe ( 973776) - 16 bit mIRC, for Windows 3.x. mfaq45hp.zip ( 86679) - The mIRC FAQ version 45 Welcome to mIRC version 5.81 mIRC is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) program for Windows. Just like you need a Web browser to surf over the Web you need an IRC client to chat on IRC. mIRC is developed and copyrighted by Khaled Mardam-Bey and mIRC Co. Ltd. It is highly configurable, perfectly stable and has lots of goodies hidden 'in there'. mIRC offers full color control, DCC File Send and Get capabilities, aliases, a remote commands and events handler, scripting, place sensitive programmable popup menu's, World Wide Web and sound support, and... a lot more. mIRC can act as an external Web browser helper application but it can work totally independent as well. And most important; to use mIRC you don't have to know anything of the above. Simply install mIRC and chat away! mIRC is shareware. It can be downloaded freely and evaluated for 30 days. If you find that you enjoy using mIRC, please try to register your copy. Your registration licenses you to use your copy of mIRC and helps support our continued work on mIRC. mIRC is distributed in self-extracting cabinets that automatically will install mIRC on your PC. You don't need any external programs to install and setup mIRC on your PC, just follow the instructions. You first have to find out what mIRC issue you will be running. mIRC is available in a 16 bit issue (mirc58s.exe) and a 32 bit issue (mirc58t.exe). The 32 bit issue is meant for 32 bit Operating Systems like Windows 95, Windows 98, windows 2000 and Windows NT. If you are not sure what issue to use, try the 16 bit mIRC issue! That issue will always work. Download the cabinet of your choice and run the installer. Once you have installed mIRC, you can run it, fill in the required setup information, and connect to an IRC server. When you're upgrading mIRC all your old settings and scripts will stay as they were. mIRC will guide you through the initial stages and hopefully you'll be chatting in no time. If you get stuck or want to find out more about a certain feature, just click on a Help button in a window or browse the Help file and you should find lots of hints to help you out. As you become more experienced you can also start configuring mIRC's features to suit your own needs and tastes, features such as colours, fonts, function keys, aliases, popup menus, scripts, sounds and many others. Good luck and have fun! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet Relay Chat. For those of you new to the Internet, IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. The IRC networks offer a virtual meeting place where people from all over the world can meet and talk. Don't mix-up IRC with the slow Web chats you might have seen. IRC is specially designed for chatting and works very fast. IRC was originally written by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988. Since starting in Finland, it has spread to almost all countries around the world. IRC is a multi-user chat system, where people meet on "channels" (rooms, virtual places, usually with a certain topic of conversation) to talk in groups, or privately. There is no restriction to the number of people that can participate in a given discussion, or the number of channels that can be formed on IRC. mIRC attempts to provide a user-friendly interface for use with the IRC networks. As a user you run mIRC on your PC and you connect to a "server" in an IRC network. All servers are interconnected and pass messages from user to user over the IRC network. One server can be connected to several other servers and up to hundreds of clients. You can join several channels at once and participate in private discussions at the same time. The various parts of the IRC client mIRC have been designed with the aim of simplifying and speeding up your IRC sessions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is New in version 5.81? * Improvements and new features: This version has far too many improvements, new features and functions to mention here in detail. I'll point to some of the simple ones here - the ones you might encounter right away; - Remember how mIRC now uses it's own internal beep sound for event beeps? By popular request the internal beep is now only played for event beeps. mIRC uses the default windows sound for errors etc. and a "pc speaker" option has been added overriding both of them. Happy? - Another looong awaited feature is a built-in uninstaller. I wouldn't know why that is needed but next time you clean up your PC, mIRC is easily removed by the control panel add/remove dialog! It also removes all registry changes btw. - An important change has been made to the socket connection routines. mIRC was binding the connect socket, even if it wasn't necessary. This may have prevented mIRC from connecting through a DSL or network environment. - The Flood protection has been improved by sending a NOTICE instead of a PRIVMSG to the server every now and then. As you might know mIRC will wait for this notice to get back from the server before it resumes sending any queued lines. - A small problem with the .chat files that unloaded all of your remotes has been fixed. More important is the complete integration of .chat file support into the mIRC executable. The mlink helper applications are no longer needed! mIRC will also set up the .cha and .chat associations in the registry. - With mIRC 5.81 we're experimenting with support for URL's of the irc://irc.undernet.org:6667/mIRC format. This makes it very easy to add a link to your website leading to your favorite IRC channel! Give it a try? Please note however that this only seems to be working for MS Internet Exploder -not Netscape- we're still working on this :) See http://www.mirc.com/mirclink.html for up-to-date info. - The new /anick command no longer changes your current nickname, unless the alternate nick is the active one. /nick will try to prevent nick and altnick from becoming identical nicks. - By popular request you can now either disable, or ignore all except certain known file types, or ignore only certain known (and often malicious) file types in the DCC Ignore feature. * Buggies fixed: mIRC's new version fixes most, if not all, of the small but nevertheless annoying buggies found in the previous version 5.8. Some prominent ones are ......... - A small change in the Channel Central (use the /channel command) blocked the use of control characters in the topic editbox. This blocked the use of colours etc. Sorry. - The /splay command will now accept long file names even if they're not enclosed in quotes and error messages are now also wrapped. - A little bug that emerged if you double-clicked URL's under Windows ME is fixed. - Another buggy in the Agent wasn't allowing you to turn agent on/off on a per channel/query window basis. * Scripters: All you mIRC scripters will love this version for its load of new features. You know by now that you have to dig through the help file and versions.txt to get hold of the best among them. Some things you might miss there are the old /closemsg command since the /close handles closing query windows a-ok. Also gone from the documents are the $sdir, $file, $hfile, and $dir identifiers that are still supported but are no longer documented in the help file. Please remove their use from your scripts and use their new alternatives! In the future mIRC will no longer support them. I'm sure you will have a lot of fun! Apart from removing thingies, about hundred other features, variables and identifiers are improved or added. Have fun exploring them! Please read the details of all changes in the versions.txt appended to this file, distributed with mIRC and available on the Web. Good luck and have fun with this new mIRC! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- More information. mIRC is supported by a set of WWW pages. On these pages you'll find information on new versions, new ideas, known bugs and solutions, and possibly all other information you might need on IRC in general, and on mIRC. Besides the newest mIRC also the new mIRC FAQ and IRC Intro file are available from these www pages. http://www.mirc.com/ USA http://www.mirc.co.uk United Kingdom http://www.geocities.com/~mirc/ USA http://www.nip.nl/mirc/ The Netherlands http://www.mirc.queen.it/ Italy http://mirc.kems.net/ Kuwait http://www.mirc.com.ar/ Argentina http://www.mirc.co.za/ South Africa http://mirc.eon.net.au/ Australia ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- License Agreement mIRC(R) v5.81 Internet Relay Chat Client Copyright (c) 1995-2000 mIRC Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved. mIRC is shareware, which means that you can use it freely for 30 days to evaluate it. If during, or at the end of, the evaluation period you decide that you would like to continue using mIRC, please register your copy. Your single-user registration will license you to use your copy of mIRC, will support work on future versions, new features, and bug fixes, and will provide you with technical support via email. Please see the How To Register section in the mIRC help file or on the mIRC website at http://www.mirc.com to find out how to register. mIRC may be freely distributed subject to, but not limited to, the following terms: mIRC may not be sold or resold, distributed as a part of any package, commercial or otherwise, used in a commercial environment, used or distributed in support of a commercial service, or used or distributed to support any kind of profit-generating activity, even if it is being distributed freely. If you would like to distribute mIRC as part of a shareware distribution, magazine, internet book, CD-Rom, etc. please contact me for permission. All commercial use interests in mIRC should be directed to khaled@mirc.com mIRC may only be distributed in the original distribution install file as distributed by mIRC Co. Ltd. The mIRC distribution install file may not have files added to it or removed from it, and none of its contents may be modified, decompiled, or reverse engineered. mIRC is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall mIRC Co. Ltd. be liable for any damages whatsoever including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, loss of business profits or special damages, even if mIRC Co. Ltd. has been advised of the possibility of such damages. mIRC is a registered trademark of mIRC Co. Ltd. The mIRC Logo is a trademark of mIRC Co. Ltd. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------