Internet Explorer Saves HTML Content Instead of the Active Document

When dynamic content is generated by a Web server and it is returned by using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Content-Disposition: Attachment header, you receive an Open dialog box. If you choose the Save As option, Internet Explorer prompts you with the file name and program type, but the file name is the name of the referrer document and the contents are the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) code instead of the file name that is indicated in the header and the contents that were dynamically generated and returned from the server. When dynamic content is generated by a Web server and it is returned by using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Content-Disposition: Attachment header, you receive a File Download dialog box. If you choose the Save this file to disk option, Internet Explorer prompts you with the file name and program type, but the file name is the name of the referrer document and the contents are the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) code instead of the file name that is indicated in the header and the contents that were dynamically generated and returned from the server.

You may also receive multiple File Download dialog boxes attempting to open a single file attachment in an e-mail message when using Outlook Web Access to connect to a Microsoft Exchange 5.5 server.

This problem can occur if Internet Explorer does not correctly process the Content-Disposition header and the data that this header is defining.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Internet Explorer version 5.5. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: If you are unable to apply the service pack, you may apply the latest Internet Explorer Security Rollup patch for Internet Explorer 5.5 SP1 from the following Microsoft Web site: The English-language version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later: This patch can only be installed on systems running Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 1.

To work around this problem, choose to open the document when you receive the Open dialog box, and then click Save As on the File menu after the document opens to save the document to your computer. Note that you can also right-click the download link, and then click Save Target As.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Internet Explorer version 5.5 Service Pack 2.