Neal,

Thanks for the link. It does explain things very well.

Cheers,
Anton

OK, I found this link that talks about a new security setting in IE6 SP1.

I think Brad's right - security has plugged the hole. So maybe the doc'n should be changed to indicate the local file reference only works for downloading (saving) the file, and not opening it directly. Brad, does that work for you?

Please ignore my previous post (no longer visible after I edit this comment) - I was looking at the wrong link).
When I look at this link:

<a href="file:///c:/temp/book1.xls">file:///c:/temp/book1.xls<sup>
<img class="rendericon" src="/images/icons/linkext7.gif" height="7" width="7" 
align="absmiddle" alt="" border="0"/></sup></a>

it does appear the link is formulated correctly by the renderer.

However, it doesn't open the file. Hmmm...Maybe it only works if the target is a (network) folder, or if you are willing to click the Save As. I can't seem to get it to launch Excel when clicking the link.

The "Save Target As" functionality also works in IE 7.

The problem is with the WIKI renderer, not the browser. Because if I can click on a link in an HTML capable field where I have the <a> tag, then I should be able to do the same in the WIKI renderer, since it should be mimicking the <a> tag behaviour that HTML offers.

If I get that working I'll post back.

That would be really appreciated.

I presume that most people do not know that they have to use the "Save Target As" trick and hence claim that it does not work. I guess I would agree with them. I would not be surprised that the "Save Target As" functionality is an unfixed hole that was not closed when the functionality got changed.

We need to check if the "Save Target As" functionality works inIE 7.

When I click the link (above), nothing at all happens. if I right-click and say "Copy Shortcut" (in I.E. 6), I get the link file:///c:/temp/book1.xls, and as I said earlier, I can save that link as a new Excel file elsewhere, and open it successfully. I haven't tried monkeying with my IE settings to see why. If I get that working I'll post back.

Neal,

Thanks for the update!

What happens if you click the link, rather than go "Save Target As"? That is, what happens when you try to "open the XLS file in Excel directly"?

Cheers,
Anton

Although there is a security setting that might be in play, I should explain that I don't use the WIKI renderer. What I meant is that I have an HTML capable field (the project description) in which I have content like this:

<a href="file:y:/ABC/abc Documentation" target="_blank">

and it works just fine.

Even here, I was able to add a WIKI comment like this one:
File file:c:/temp/book1.xls
and although it wouldn't open the XLS file in Excel directly, if I right click and choose "Save Target As", it will allow me to save the XLS file, which means it is reachable.

My point is that if there is a problem, I don't think it's with the browser(s), but with the WIKI renderer and how it passes links to the browser for interpretation.

Hi Neal,

Can you try and create a link here and click through to a local file on your machine?

The file protocol still works if the original page is hosted on the local machine.

Cheers,
Lily

I'm on I.E. 6 XP SP2 and it works just fine. I'm not "browsing a local machine". I'm clicking on a file link set up using the syntax as described in the documentation:

Path Syntax
You also need to use proper URI syntax for local file references. It is not proper to enter an operating-system-specific path, such as c:\subdir\file.ext without converting it to a URI, which in this case would be file:///c:/subdir/file.ext. In general, a file path is converted to a URI by adding the scheme identifier file:, then three forward slashes (representing an empty authority or host segment), then the path with all backslashes converted to forward slashes.

UNC Paths
If you're linking to a file in a UNC path (e.g., \\servername\share\file.ext), you will need to specify the path thusly:

file://///servername/share/file.ext

I'm just saying that whatever the problem is, it's more likely a setup issue rather than loss of functionality in some later version(s) of browser(s).

According to MSDN:

Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (SP1) no longer allows browsing a local machine from the Internet zone.

There doesn't seem to be a way to change this. I adjusted the IE security settings by modifying the registry to enable the "My Computer" security zone, and enabling the "web sites in less privileged web content zone can navigate into this zone" option and it still didn't allow links to the local system.

I think we should research the situation a bit more so we can tell users the correct information. I think they would appreciate us doing the research rather than pushing back on them.

Brad, I think you should leave this for now, and let whomever picks up this task do the research.

Cheers,
Anton

I tried on IE 6 on XP SP2 on a number of sites including ours and the file:// links not longer worked. I searched for specific information about this but couldnt find any per se.

So I have "reasoned" that since the XP SP2 security updates came out IE has changed behavior. I think its related to the "zone" the site is in so it may work for local network instances but not public ones.

Maybe our docs should just reflect that it may not work in IE depending on security levels.

When looking at this, please confirm if this functionality have been removed from browsers, or is there a specific setting that needs to be enabgled instead.

Are you guys sure about this? Is this something new in FF 2.0 or I.E. 7? I was the one who provided links to that syntax (from Firefox's help pages). See JRA-8258. Is there a link that describes this functionality having been removed by FF or I.E. ? It may be necessary to also set a security setting.

Lets remove the reference to the file links from the docs.

Cheers,
Anton