I am generating a *.docx file server-side, that I want to return to the

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Asked: May 26, 20262026-05-26T11:36:42+00:00 2026-05-26T11:36:42+00:00

I am generating a *.docx file server-side, that I want to return to the

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I am generating a *.docx file server-side, that I want to return to the user upon pressing a button. In the button’s event handler, I currently generate the document data as a byte[] (called bytes in the following code sample), and return it to the user as follows:

Response.Clear();
Response.ClearHeaders();
Response.ClearContent();
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=Test.docx;");
Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", bytes.Length.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));
Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-word.document.12";
Response.Cache.SetCacheability(System.Web.HttpCacheability.NoCache);
Response.ContentEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;
Response.BinaryWrite(bytes);
Response.Flush();
Response.Close();

This results in the strange behavior with IE that when the user clicks the “open” button when presented with the download, word 2010 fires up and states that “Word experienced an error trying to open the file”. If the user choses to save the file somewhere first however, word opens the saved document just fine.

I’ve experimented with different content-types, caching and encoding options, to no avail. Any clues what could be causing this behavior?