[thelist] Forcing Download of Files With a Particular Extension

gregory.john.toland at census.gov gregory.john.toland at census.gov
Fri Jan 26 12:12:31 CST 2001


I agree. That is why I was trying to set up the HTTP header of content-type
or maybe content-disposition on our web server.  That way the server is
telling the client what to do with the file.

My situation:  The IE client is presented with an IFRAME filled with a list
of files of a particular directory.  I hate to zip up all these files
separately. I'm working on a NN solution since NN does not support IFRAME.

Thanks though for your suggestion!

Gregory J Toland
 Sr. Systems Architect
 CHM, Inc.
 (301) 457-8058
 tolan002 at census.gov


From: "Peter Barrett" <peterb at corel.com>

I've had a similar problem....

The trouble is (if I am understanding the issue correctly), that if the
*client* machine has a certain extension associated with their browser, the
browser will try to open it ... which is irritating since you can't control
what a user will do. For this reason, (and to save bandwidth), most major
download sites package everything up in zip files, which I have used, and
offer
as a suggestion.

hth,
~pete

>
> When I click on the file the file automatically appears in the browser.
It
> just opens it up instead of asking me to save the file.  Must I re-boot
the
> server or am I going about this the wrong way?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: gregory.john.toland at census.gov

I have a directory in my web site where I have allowed directory browsing.
I would like to configure the web server so when the user clicks on a
particular file (*.TM) the dialog box pops up asking where to save the
file.  I am running IIS 4.0 on WinNTS 4.0 SP6a.  I went into the properties
of my web site and clicked on the "HTTP Headers" tab.  I then clicked on
"File Types" and added the following MIME Type:
     Associated Extension: TM
     Content Type (MIME): application/x-msdownload

When I click on the file the file automatically appears in the browser.  It
just opens it up instead of asking me to save the file.  Must I re-boot the
server or am I going about this the wrong way?

NN 4.7 give me a dialog box entitled, "Unknown File Type".  It asks me
whether I want to pick an
application or save the file (which is what I want).  IE 5.01 SP1 and IE
5.5 open the file in the browser (which is what I don't want).  Help!!!

I thought I read somewhere that IE "snuffs" the contents of the file with
an unknown MIME type.  Since the contents of these TM files are ASCII data
it then opens up the file in the browser for the user to view.  Is there
any way around this in IE?





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