Person on MSN can"t download our DOC files from our site?

We publish quite a few .doc files on our web site for customers to download.

We're getting a complaint from one user that happens to be using 'MSN
Explorer' and Office 2003. I'm not familiar with MSN Explorer...is it just a
rebranding IE for MSN customers?

The issue, as described by the customer:

---------
[clicking the downoad icon] moves the form into a file download folder, then
I left click on the file name and get an "msn.File Download" box with a File
Conversion Box and *Windows preselected, which shows an encoding box.
the downloaded file has script and symbols of the formatting, then the
script of the form in what looks like an html file.
---------

In the end, they end up with 'gobledygook' according to them.

I have confirmed that they can properly download .doc files from other sites
OK, and that they can open the file if I send it to them via an email
attachment.

Anyone have any ideas what to check for that might be causing this problem
for this user? Could it be some sort of response headers issue in IIS? MIME
types? Other thoughts?

-Darrel

Re: Person on MSN can"t download our DOC files from our site?

That person has a plugin interfering with the download. See the word
"conversion" there?

They need to dig around in the settings to find out how to disable that, or
call MSN for help.

Or, use Firefox, or uninstall the garbage add-ins to IE and just use plain
IE. That extra stuff is not necessary to connect to the ISP despite what
the ISP marketing wonks may seem to think.

"darrel" wrote in message
news:eMzcHP3AIHA.5652@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> We publish quite a few .doc files on our web site for customers to
> download.
>
> We're getting a complaint from one user that happens to be using 'MSN
> Explorer' and Office 2003. I'm not familiar with MSN Explorer...is it just
> a rebranding IE for MSN customers?
>
> The issue, as described by the customer:
>
> ---------
> [clicking the downoad icon] moves the form into a file download folder,
> then I left click on the file name and get an "msn.File Download" box with
> a File Conversion Box and *Windows preselected, which shows an encoding
> box.
> the downloaded file has script and symbols of the formatting, then the
> script of the form in what looks like an html file.
> ---------
>
> In the end, they end up with 'gobledygook' according to them.
>
> I have confirmed that they can properly download .doc files from other
> sites OK, and that they can open the file if I send it to them via an
> email attachment.
>
> Anyone have any ideas what to check for that might be causing this problem
> for this user? Could it be some sort of response headers issue in IIS?
> MIME types? Other thoughts?
>
> -Darrel
>

Re: Person on MSN can"t download our DOC files from our site?

> That person has a plugin interfering with the download. See the word
> "conversion" there?

Good catch. However, wouldn't that affect any .doc file they download from
any site? It seems to only be an issue with .doc files on our site. They
claim to be able to download .doc files on other sites I've sent them too.

-Darrel

Re: Person on MSN can"t download our DOC files from our site?

On Oct 2, 12:11 pm, "darrel" wrote:
> > That person has a plugin interfering with the download. See the word
> > "conversion" there?
>
> Good catch. However, wouldn't that affect any .doc file they download from
> any site? It seems to only be an issue with .doc files on our site. They
> claim to be able to download .doc files on other sites I've sent them too.
>
> -Darrel



What is the MIME Type that is configured for .doc resources on your
server?

Perhaps we are seeing some content-sniffing logic which is complaining
due to mismatched content-type from what the sniffing thinks of the
data.


//David
http://w3-4u.blogspot.com
http://blogs.msdn.com/David.Wang
//