PRB: In-Place Activating Document Servers in Internet Explorer

When you open an Active Document file in Internet Explorer, the document server is sometimes in-place activated and sometimes launched as a stand-alone application depending on which version of Internet Explorer you are using.

In Internet Explorer 4.x, the BrowserFlags registry key controls whether Active Document servers are in-place activated. For more information on the BrowserFlags registry key, see the "References" section.

Internet Explorer 5.x uses the BrowserFlags registry key but also requires that Active Desktop be installed for in-place activation to work.

To resolve this problem, perform the following steps:

1. Make sure that Active Desktop is installed.
   
   NOTE: Microsoft Windows 2000 includes Active Desktop.
   • When you perform a fresh install of Internet Explorer 5, you must uninstall Internet Explorer 5, install Internet Explorer 4.x with Active Desktop, and then reinstall Internet Explorer 5. You cannot install Active Desktop separately.
   • When you upgrade from Internet Explorer 4.x to Internet Explorer 5, you can use the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK), which contains an option to include Active Desktop in the installation. For information about the IEAK, see the following Microsoft Web site:
     http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/ie/ieak/previous/techinfo/ie50/default.mspx
2. In Windows Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Folder Options. (On some operating systems, this is located on the View menu.)
3. On the File Types tab, click the extension that the document server uses (for example, for Microsoft Word documents, click DOC).
4. Click Advanced, and make sure that the Browse in same window check box is selected. This allows in-place activation to work. Note that this option is available only if Active Desktop is installed on a computer with Internet Explorer 5.

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

1. Create a Word document.
2. In the address bar of Internet Explorer, type the path to the Word document.
3. If the Browse in same window check box is selected, the document is opened in-place in Internet Explorer. Otherwise, Word is launched as a stand-alone application to display the document.

For additional information on the BrowserFlags registry key, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about developing Web-based solutions for Microsoft Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web sites: