Home/ Questions/Q 379775
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-12T14:55:28+00:00

I have a website from which I want to enable browser users to download

  • 0

I have a website from which I want to enable browser users to download an exe.

I am testing it with a very simple HTML file which I load into the web browser with “File>Open”. The “body” looks something like this:

<body>
<a href="http://www.example.com/myprogram.exe" target="_self">click to download exe</a>
<a href="http://www.example.com/myprogram.zip" target="_self">click to download zip</a>
</body>

The issue is this: when I click on the first link (myprogram.exe), the browser (IE8 as well as FireFox) streams the myprogram.exe directly into the browser window: I see a whole lot of binary.

When I click on the second link (myprogram.zip), the browser asks me if I would like to open the file or save it to disk, which is what I expected to happen with the .exe.

This is the ONLY .exe download that causes this strange behaviour. I have downloaded .exes often and the browsers always ask me whether to open the file or save to disk.

Is there something that needs to be set on the web site itself, or the host or … ?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You need to correct the content-type your webserver is sending. It sounds like it is claiming that the data is text/plain. My mime.types file suggests exe files should be application/x-msdos-program

    If you are using Apache, see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_mime.html#addtype (or the similar page in the manual for the version you are using).

    • 0