The problem could irk Explorer users that have registered with Web sites which store user names and passwords in the browser's cache in order to allow surfers to automatically log on to the sites. Until the problem is fixed, Internet Explorer 3.0 users may have to manually re-enter their user names and passwords every time they go to a Web site that requires the data.
So far, the caching problem appears to be affecting login at only four Web sites, said Yusuf Mehdi, group product manager at Microsoft. Mehdi couldn't name the sites that were affected, but he said the sites were able to fix the problem through slight modifications to their Web servers. Microsoft has acknowledged the bug on the "known issues" page of its Web site.
Microsoft plans to fix the caching problem in Internet Explorer, but couldn't say whether the fix would be a patch or an entirely new version of the browser.
The bug does not affect other features of Internet Explorer that are used to automatically log on to sites such as digital certificates and cookies, Mehdi said.
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