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Warning: The retired, out-of-support Internet Explorer 11 desktop application has been permanently disabled through a Microsoft Edge update on certain versions of Windows 10. For more information, see Internet Explorer 11 desktop app retirement FAQ.

Source: Microsoft Support

RAPID PUBLISHING

RAPID PUBLISHING ARTICLES PROVIDE INFORMATION DIRECTLY FROM WITHIN THE MICROSOFT SUPPORT ORGANIZATION. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS CREATED IN RESPONSE TO EMERGING OR UNIQUE TOPICS, OR IS INTENDED SUPPLEMENT OTHER KNOWLEDGE BASE INFORMATION.

Symptom



When you use the address bar of Internet Explorer 6.0 or later to enter a username and password to access an FTP site, and the format of the URL you enter is ftp://username:password@domain, the following error message is displayed:


    Windows cannot find ' ftp://username:password@domain'. Check the spelling and try again.

Cause



Either the username or the password contains any one of the characters:


    : # ? / \ %


This behavior is by design.

Resolution



If the username or password needs to contain any one of the characters listed in the Cause section, you will need to encode the special characters in the following way:


# -> %23


/ -> %2F


: -> %3A


? -> %3F


\ -> %5C


% -> %25

More Information



Consider the following example.


A user with the username "jdoe" and a password of "Sure?" who wants to access an FTP site on a server called "ftpserver".


When the user tries to access the site using Internet Explorer and enters ftp://jdoe:Sure?@ftpserver into the address bar, the access will fail and the error message described above will be displayed.


However, when the user enters ftp://jdoe:Sure%3F@ftpserver in the address bar, he or she will successfully access the FTP server.

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