You may see an HTML rendering of an .xml file data connection in the Data Source task pane of Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007

When you view the data source structure of a secondary .xml file data connection in the Data Source task pane of Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007, you may see an HTML rendering of that file instead of the XML data structure.

This behavior occurs because the following conditions are true:

• You use the .xml file as the data connection.
• The .xml file contains a Microsoft Office InfoPath Processing Instruction.

When InfoPath sends a Web request to create a connection, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services redirects the request to InfoPath Forms Services. Then, InfoPath Forms Services returns an HTML rendering of the file.

To work around this behavior, append the following string to the data connection URL: The data connection URL will resemble the following: Note ServerName is a placeholder for the name of the computer that is running Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server.
LibraryName is a placeholder for the name of the library where you store the uploaded XML file.
FileName is a placeholder for the name of the file that has an InfoPath Processing Instruction.

This behavior is by design.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Upload an .xml file that has an InfoPath Processing Instruction to an Office SharePoint Server library.
2. Start Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007. Click Design a Form Template, click to select the Enable browser-compatible features only check box, select Blank, and then click OK.
3. Add a data connection to the uploaded InfoPath form. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. On the Tools menu, click Data Connections.
   2. Click Add, select Create a new connection to, select Receive Data, and then click Next.
   3. Select XML document, and then click Next.
   4. Enter the URL of the library that contains the .xml file that you uploaded in step 1, and then click Next. For example, you may enter the following URL:
      http://ServerName/LibraryName/FileName.xml
   5. Select Include the data as a resource file in the template or Access the data from the specified location, and then click Next.
   6. Click Finish, and then click Close.
4. Click Design Tasks, and then click Data Source.
5. In the Data source list, select the data source that you created in step 3.

You will see the HTML rendering of the .xml file instead of the XML data structure.