How Internet Explorer Understand File Types.

External Since: Sep 30, 2003 Posts: 5

1) I have the following html code on the server:

<HTML>
....
.....
<BODY>
<A HREF = http://MyServer/MyDoc.doc> Click here to see the document</A>

When I click on the link How Internet Explorer understand that it's a Word
Document and It's necessary open it with Microsoft Word ? Is The extension
to give the necessary information to Internet Explorer ?
Where does IE look for the application to use to open the file on the server
? On the local registry ?
I have tried to rename Mydoc.doc in MyDoc.pdf and I have called

http://MyServer/MyDoc.pdf and the browser has opened Acrobat Reader but the
binary format is for Microsoft Word.

Does the Browser User an Http_Header sended automatically ? (for example
HTTP_FILE_NAME....IF IT EXISTS)

2)Now I have the following link:

http://MyServer/ReturnMyDoc.asp

It returns the binary data of MyDoc.doc file. Now I want to say to the
browser that the file is called MyDoc.doc (I don't want to use Content Type
= ms-application/msword) : is there a header to say this to Internet
Explorer ?

Thanks Rob.

External Since: Aug 26, 2003 Posts: 171

Generally the client should handle the document as what the Content-Type
header says. IIS gets it based on the extension (but you can change that),
so the behavior below is not caused by IE but IIS (well, whatever your web
server is). However, for types IE handles itself it ignores the Content-Type
and tries to guess what the document is (so if you send it HTML as
image/jpeg it will render it as HTML).

Jerry

"Roberto" <rob DeleteThis @1977.it> wrote in message
news:%239%23s9FxkDHA.392@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> 1) I have the following html code on the server:
>
> <HTML>
> ...
> ....
> <BODY>
> Click here to see the document</A>
>
> When I click on the link How Internet Explorer understand that it's a Word
> Document and It's necessary open it with Microsoft Word ? Is The
extension
> to give the necessary information to Internet Explorer ?
> Where does IE look for the application to use to open the file on the
server
> ? On the local registry ?
> I have tried to rename Mydoc.doc in MyDoc.pdf and I have called
>
> <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://MyServer/MyDoc.pdf" target="_blank">http://MyServer/MyDoc.pdf</a> and the browser has opened Acrobat Reader but
the
> binary format is for Microsoft Word.
>
> Does the Browser User an Http_Header sended automatically ? (for example
> HTTP_FILE_NAME....IF IT EXISTS)
>
> 2)Now I have the following link:
>
<font color=purple> > <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://MyServer/ReturnMyDoc.asp</font" target="_blank">http://MyServer/ReturnMyDoc.asp</font</a>>
>
> It returns the binary data of MyDoc.doc file. Now I want to say to the
> browser that the file is called MyDoc.doc (I don't want to use Content
Type
> = ms-application/msword) : is there a header to say this to Internet
> Explorer ?
>
> Thanks Rob.
>
>
>
>