Article ID: 267991 - Last Review: May 11, 2006 - Revision: 4.0

FIX: "Content-Disposition: Attachment" Fails for Known Content Types

View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q267991

SYMPTOMS

Despite the "Content-Disposition: attachment" HTTP response header, Internet Explorer does not prompt the user to save the file and instead automatically displays the file in the browser.

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To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Internet Explorer version 5.5. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

276369 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276369/EN-US/ ) How to Obtain the Latest Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Internet Explorer version 5.5 Service Pack 1.

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MORE INFORMATION

Not all content types are affected by this bug. Only default content types such as HTML and text files fail to show a File Download dialog box.

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Steps to Reproduce Behavior

The following Active Server Pages (ASP) page reproduces the problem:

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<% Response.AddHeader "Content-Disposition", "attachment" %>
This text should not appear in the browser window automatically.
Internet Explorer should prompt the user first with the option to save the file.

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REFERENCES

For more information about developing Web-based solutions for Microsoft Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web sites:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie/ (http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie/)

http://support.microsoft.com/iep (http://support.microsoft.com/iep)

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APPLIES TO

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5

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kbbug kbfix kbie550sp1fix kbnavigation KB267991

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Retired KB Content Disclaimer

This article was written about products for which Microsoft no longer offers support. Therefore, this article is offered "as is" and will no longer be updated.

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