Internet Explorer Cannot View Directory Listing of FTP Site

When you use Internet Explorer to connect to a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server, the list of files and directories on the FTP server may not be displayed in Internet Explorer.

This problem affects the following versions of Internet Explorer for the indicated platforms:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer version 2.0 or earlier for Windows 95
• Microsoft Internet Explorer version 2.01 or earlier for Windows 3.1
• Microsoft Internet Explorer version 2.0.1 or earlier for Macintosh
• Microsoft Internet Explorer version 2.0 for Windows NT 3.51

This behavior can occur if the FTP server is configured to send the directory listing to the client (or browser) in an MS-DOS directory listing format.

Most FTP servers can be configured to format directory listings in either an MS-DOS (DIR) format or a UNIX (LS) format when sending the output to an FTP client. For the versions of Internet Explorer listed above to display the contents of an FTP server, the output must be formatted in the UNIX format.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer listed above. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

For information about configuring a Microsoft Windows NT FTP server, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For information about configuring other FTP servers to send output in the UNIX (LS) format, please refer to the server's documentation.