After 4 attempts still getting the same message when i try to click on news and registration templates link in the admin area. I got the forum to install ok and went and made a few changes in the forum settings and then head over to the news and registration templates and get the same error page.

XML Parsing Error: not well-formed
Location: http://www.maxwellsforum.cy-ber-geek.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?v-admin/a-temp/
Line Number 163, Column 152:     <td><font size="2"><b><img src="<blah v="$images">/<blah v="$micon">">￿￿<a href="<blah v="$totalurl">"><blah v="$messtitle"></b></font></td>
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permission are all set according to

http://www.blahdocs.com/Performing_a_new_installation_of_E-Blah

directories and url's all appear to be ok.

the first forum i installed in a different directory works ok and doesnt give this error. the forums are on the same server but different directories.

any ideas?

In your Settings, disable XHTML standard pages.  It's a feature that's not perfect because there are still a few pages left in E-Blah that aren't 100% standard.

Quoted from 1850

In your Settings, disable XHTML standard pages.  It's a feature that's not perfect because there are still a few pages left in E-Blah that aren't 100% standard.

That, and most templates aren't 100% XHTML compliant.  I'm not sure it's every really save to turn that on, TBH (even though the specification says you should).