Set IE to always download files

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andrew Hayes
  • Start date Start date
A

Andrew Hayes

Hi all,

While I know about the "Confirm open after download" and "Browse in same
window" options that I can set for the file types, is there any way to force
IE to always ask to Open/Save a file, regardless of the extension?

I don't really want to go through every file type on every user desktop,
manually changing the settings, when all their browsers take settings from
the ISA server.

Any information would be appeciated. Thanks.

Regards...Andrew
 
Hi David,

No. I have an web app that creates CSV and XLS documents for the user to
download, and pops up a small IE window to show progress while it's doing
so.

Unfortunately, when my app redirects the browser to the file upon creation,
it either opens in the small window, or in a seperate browser window, or in
the associated app.

My users don't want any of those options. They want to see the Open/Save
dialog.

Setting the File Type options from Folder Options works well with Windows
2000 (it always shows the Open/Save dialog) but with Windows XP it can't
seem to make up it's mind what to do.

Sometimes it will open the file in the app, sometimes it will open it within
the popup window, and sometimes it asks if I want to save or open the file.
It's not consistant.

The only way I know for sure for it to prompt to save the file being
downloaded from the web is to remove the file association, but that is not a
suitable solution.

Is there a setting under Internet Options (Security, Content, Advanced,
etc.) that forces IE to ignore file associations that are not animations,
sounds, movies, or pictures?

Or is it a setting in Excel that tells it not to open content directly from
the browser?

Any thoughts?

Regards...Andrew
 
IE loves content sniffing. I downloaded a reg file a month ago and IE was
convinced it was an avi or something (MP3 can't remember). I was suss and
saved it and examined it to see. It was a plain old unicode reg file. The
byte sequence just happened to match an avi.
 
That's what I thought, so I disabled the setting in Miscellaneous called
"Open files based on content, not file extension" but with no effect.

Trouble is, the IE versions are the same between the 2000 and XP machines,
so it has to be something to do with the OS behaving differently with IE.

Anyhow. I guess this is going to be one of those "by design" cop-outs, so
I'll probably switch the users over to Firefox. That correctly asks if I
want to save the file on both 2000 and XP.

Thanks for your help David.

Regards...Andrew
 
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