When opening a Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word document with Internet Explorer, you might receive an error message that the files Temporary.xls, Internet.xls, Temporary.doc, or Internet.doc could not be opened.
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When Internet Explorer downloads a file, it places it in a temporary directory, which is usually named "Temporary Internet Files." When you open the file, Internet Explorer launches the application associated with the file's extension, and passes that application the full path and filename of the file. For example, for an .xls file, Internet Explorer might launch Excel.exe as follows:
Excel.exe C:\WINNT\PROFILES\user\Temporary Internet Files\85IFCTQN\page.x
The problem occurs with path and filenames that contain spaces. The target application interprets these as multiple parameters. For the example above, Excel tries to open three files,
"C:\WINNT\PROFILES\user\Temporary.xls," "Internet.xls," and "Files\85IFCTQN\page.xls"
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With some versions of Internet Explorer, you can
work around this problem by renaming your "Temporary Internet Files"
directory so that it does not contain spaces. If you are unable to rename
this directory, you will need to save the file to disk and open from Microsoft Excel instead.
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Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in Internet Explorer 4.01. Microsoft is researching this problem and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available.
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