Internet Explorer behaviour discrepancy

Hi

When I try this command line on my machine...

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" C:\DOCUME~1\Sam\LOCALS~1\Temp\tmp45201.jpg

internet explorer starts up, and the image (tmp45201.jpg) is displayed, just as you would expect.


When my collegue does the same thing, she sees a dialog box just the same as if she had tried to download an image. It says 'Do you want to Save or open this file in [some image program]?'

In both cases, the path to I.E. is correct, and the path to the temporary image does indeed point to a real jpeg that exists.

Why should one installation of IE just show the image, and another offer to download it?


Hope you can help.


Sam

 

Where does it exist? If it is on your computer, it will open it.
Since your colleague's name is not Sam, of course he will not be viewing files in Documents and Setting\Sam on his computer, hence the suggestion to download it to his computer (probably under Documents and Setting\his username so he can view it like you do.

 

Perhaps I should explain myself a little better.

This is indeed an odd way to go about popping up a picture, but this is only one very small part of a much larger problem. I have simply distilled it down to the basic difference: how come two 'identical' command linesyield different results.

On both machines, the correct path to internet explorer is provided. It's true that the path shown in my example that leads to the temporary image file is specific to one of the machines, but it is being suitably modified when we try it on the other machine. Rest assured, the files I'm trying to access do exist!

I don't believe this is to do with file associations. It's true that if you double-click an image file, that Windows will use file associations to find the 'correct' program with which to open that image, but that is not what I am doing. In both cases, I am explicitly asking internet explorer to open a jpeg, a job it is perfectly capable of doing. In one case it does indeed open the file, but in the other case it treats the file as if it is not one that it can open, and offers to download it instead. The download dialog DOES use file associations, and offers to either save it to your machine, or open it with a program suggested by your file associations.

thanks everyone