Question

I have a web application which provides Excel files via IE 7. It requests the files with an HTTP GET from a URL which returns the data with a content type of ‘application/vnd.ms-excel’. It then opens the spreadsheets in an IFrame.

This all works fine unless Excel is already open when a spreadsheet is downloaded. In this case it is still displayed correctly but reuses the instance of Excel which is open. When the IFrame is closed, Excel hangs. Excel only becomes unlocked if the user logs out of the web application or if they download a file of a different type.

I’ve tried turning on the ‘Ignore other applications’ setting under Tools | Options | General but it didn’t solve the problem.

I’ve also tried following the steps in this answer (as the linked reference says ‘This issue has been addressed in Excel 2007 beta 2.’) with no luck.

Is there some kind of ‘disposal’ step which I’m not currently doing which would prevent Excel from hanging?

Versions:

Excel 2003 (11.8220.8221) SP3

IE 7.0.5730.11 (Update Versions: 0)

Answer 1

Further to Robert’s answer, the following line of (Java) code fixes this problem, in that it prevents Excel from hanging:

response.setHeader('Content-Disposition',      'attachment; filename=\'' + filename + '\''); 

[NB ‘response’ is an HttpServletResponse]

However, it forces the spreadsheet to be loaded into an Excel window rather than being displayed in the IFrame…

Update: Resetting the URL of the IFrame to blank forces the Excel instance to be disposed and fixes this problem (without requiring the Content-Disposition change).