Force download and really force download

[Edwin Knoppert]

I am using "application/forcedownload" for downloading files.
The fileextention is known to the PC and therefore seems to add the open button as well.

In this case this is fine but how can i really force saving only?

[Knuth Konrad]

I don't think you can. After all, "Open" does also download the file as well (to the TEMP folder) and executes/opens it from there.

[Edwin Knoppert]

In this case i actually depend on the open.
I really don't think there is an open only

That doesn't matter but there are situations i need to force download and not run from internet cache.
Users are so... .....d

[Michael Mattias]

>there are situations i need to force download and not run from internet cache.

Can you describe such a situation?

>Users are so... .....d

Users are what permit us to eat.

MCM

[Edwin Knoppert]

Installations .. i would prefer them to let downloading it to folder of choice and not to dl each time over and over.

Just a thing which comes into mind though.

[Michael Mattias]

Installations .. i would prefer them to let downloading it to folder of choice and not to dl each time over and over.

Oh, I think I see... the download counts against your monthly bandwidth at your web site host? And you pay for each 'excess' character each month?

That's a good example application. Thank you.

MCM

[Edwin Knoppert]

We deliver files for our application, often the file is executed from internet and after app-termination the file is in the history.

Since some of our paying users are that ***b they can't locate the file again.
You have to protect both them and our helpdesk

[Knuth Konrad]

Edwin isn't so wrong wuth what he wishes for. IE is notorious to not download newer versions of a file, if not setup properly, but instead seems to simply check the file's name in cache against a given download and decides "ahh, got that already". You'll end up using a much older version than the one offered at the web page.

To circumvent (IE) caching problems, simply add a random dummy querystring parameter to your download each time a download is requested, like http://www.domain.tld/mysoftware.exe?dummy123456. This fools a browser into believing it's a new thing to download.

[Joe Byrne]

Well, one idea that Adobe uses is to download an "installer stub" file. When this small (2k-8k) program downloads and is executed, it connects to the download server and then controls the entire DL and install process, including placing a "resume install" icon on the desktop until the install is complete. This way your 'stub' download file has complete control over every aspect of the download.

The customer has to actually execute the program though, so they have to be savvy enough to do at least that much.

[Edwin Knoppert]

This will bring only more troubles like firewall's and execution warnings (they don't understand.. really!).

We also have a situation of documents with specific file-extension, they often connect it to Word or Adobe reader.

All of this is actually a matter of understanding Windows but we get it on our backs.

Download file and save to a custom or My documents folder, is that so hard?
Usually there is no issue to execute the document from there but they shouldn't do that from the IE history folders.

Ever talked to such people?

[Knuth Konrad]

Ever talked to such people?

You mean, people that also use Outlook as their web browser(!!)? Yepp, we have a couple of those in our company ...