Still the preferred .mid and .mpg (midi music and MP3 music) plugin for web browsers, Crescendo suffered a nearly irreversible blow when its main company (LiveUpdate.COM) closed shop last year. Its freeware version for Windows was on virtually all machines, though its vastly superior for-pay version and its for-pay streaming Crescendo server had never really caught on, perhaps the reason for LiveUpdate's demise.

As is frequently the case with superior Windows freeware, mirrors popped up all over the 'Net to allow surfers to continue to download and install it. A quick search in most search engines for Crescendo plugin download  should yield a good list of active download sites.

Recent updates to XP and XP Pro seem to have thrown a serious monkeywrench into the installation of Crescendo. Depending on your build, it may install fine OR you may get the dreaded incompatible failures when trying to install. There's a very easy workaround. Rightclick the installer file (c51nnt.exe is for FireFox and all other Netscape-like browsers, c51xie.exe is for Internet Explorer) and merely extract the files. For general housekeeping purposes, you might move all the files to Crescendo folder either directly on C: or within Program Files.

For FireFox (and all other Netscape-like browsers), adding them to the browser is a snap. Go into the c51nnt you created when you extracted files from c51nnt.exe and copy these files to your browsers plugin folder:

• cresobs.cla (rename to CresObserver.class)
• cresplay.cla (rename to CresPlayer.class)
• mp3xaud.dll
• npmidi32.dll
• npmp332.dll
• xadsound.dll

You should now have great .mid support in your FireFox (or Netscape-like) browser.

Internet Explorer users have a rougher installation ("thanks Microsoft!"). You can try using RegServer (regsvr32.exe - in System), but results were spotty this way. An easier method is to snag a freeware copy of RegCtrls from Rodent Software. Open RegCtrls, go to File...Register File, then navigate to where you unzipped c51xie.exe. Highlight these files (use Ctrl HOLD since it's a multiple selection):

• cres.ocx
• cres95.dll
• cresnt.dll
• CRESSEQ.DLL
• mp3xaud.dll
• xadsound.dll

Now hit the OPEN button and all the files should register correctly. Refresh Internet Explorer and you should now have Crescendo for Internet Explorer installed.

Why go to the hassle of suggesting to surfers (or if you're a surfer) to get Crescendo installed? It's virus proof. Media Player is not. It's very easy for an unscrupulous site to feed you a virus with a media file in Media Player, but impossible via Crescendo. It's also a lot easier to code Crescendo embeds, you still get to use the ancient <embed="filename.mid">. Crescendo also recognizes the detach="true" tag, so you can place the embed at the bottom of the page, add a detach attribute, and surfers can stop the music, change volume, save, and similar without scrolling to the bottom of the page.