Re: IE will not open or DL Office ".doc" files, but will ".rtf" fi

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

"Oldrndrt" <Oldrndrt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:30C97A54-9247-430C-8F23-75CA611E567B@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
....
> Robert,
>
> I am not familiar with the programs you mention nor proper procedures to
> execute the actions you suggested ("An even better diagnostic would be to get
> a packet trace of both cases and then compare them. I would use netcap
> (from the XP Support Tools) to do the capture and Ethereal to do the
> formatting. If the site is not sensitive to use of proxy you could
> alternatively use something like Fiddlertool."), though I know I should be
> :>/
>
> From what I can tell, the status bar displays only the "label" of the link
> (the status bar display set by the "window.status=" item in the code)...I am
> unable to see anything (in the status bar) when I click on the link that
> gives me any clue to the problem.


Here are some more troubleshooting tips then.

Sometimes you can slow down the displays in the Status bar
by using prompts from your Security settings.
E.g. doubleclick on the Security zone icon in the Status bar
click on Custom Level... and then change all settings which
are currently Enable and have Prompt also associated with them.
(E.g. press P, note if Enable is green and if so press space;
repeat to end of list) To undo that after your testing simply
open the dialog again and click on Default Level (or restore
whatever other settings you previously had which were different
from that.)

In this case I suspect an even better diagnostic would be
to use a script debugger, if you have one, because I think
that the mouseovers that they are using will obscure what
should really normally be in the Status bar. Also who knows
what this routine does: update_breadcrumb()
There's probably source for it somewhere too but using
a script debugger would make it simpler to find and study.

But getting back to the task at hand, trying to download a file,
it looks as if you could try building a URL from the second operand
of that update_breadcrumb() thing. E.g. extract

/SCRIPT/126482005F/scripts/student/serve_page.pl/126482005F/For%20Upload/Neo%2DFreudian%20Theories%20%2D%2D%20Outline.doc?1830141530+1837085262

and add whatever prefix it needs. Then see what your symptoms are
from trying to "open" it. If you are lucky it will be that elusive download
prompt that we are after.

But if the same procedure is working for extension .rtf and since
you earlier said that "the folder options...are proper" I have no idea
what difference you are going to see. About the only thing that I can
think of is that perhaps Word's macros are kicking in and making
that difference? Perhaps you should be asking in an Office newsgroup.
Another approach would be uninstalling whatever application is currently
associated with .doc and .rtf (presumably Word) and install just the
Word Viewer instead, since it would re-associate those extensions
and filetypes and does not use macros itself. Etc.

Hmm... Word Viewer apparently created two identical filetypes
for associating those two extensions. The fact that there are two filetypes
may be enough difference to explain your symptom if yours are both
different, especially on the DDE side. Also File Type Microsoft Word
Document (for extension .doc) has another Action in its list: Open as Read-Only
which is considerably different from the default Open action that is common
to both file types. I don't have Office products installed on my current partition
to know if there could be any other difference though.

Another possibility is that the two files are not being downloaded
with the same MIME type. If they are being cached by your TIF
you may be able to detect the MIME type they were downloaded
with by opening your TIF's index.dat and finding their URLs in there.
Tip: you can open your TIF's index.dat starting with the TIF viewer:
Alt-T,O,Alt-S,V Then copy that path out of its Address bar (Alt-d,Ctrl-c)
switch to a Notepad window and press Ctrl-o,Ctrl-v and append
\Content.IE5\index.dat. Open that, make sure that Word Wrap is on
(Alt-o,W) and try to find the URLs containing Outline.doc? and Outline.rtf?
The MIME type information would be below it, if it is there.
Otherwise the packet trace mentioned earlier would be necessary
to see this possible difference.

XPsp2 has a new option which seems to be allow file extensions
from the downloaded files to take a greater role in choosing their
launching apps. In Security options, Miscellaneous section you
could try toggling: Open files based on content, not file extension
The option appears to be another of the undocumented
(requires restart) types. E.g. make sure iexplore.exe has stopped
before trying to test a change to this option.


Good luck

Robert
---


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