MSI download problem

[polidobj]

On a website I maintain at work we offer a couple of programs for download as microsoft msi files. But it seems any gecko based browser opens the file in the browser instead of downloading it. I asked if we could offer them as zip files, no dice. The kicker is that when I tested the site on my local webserver this was not a problem. My local web server is IIS 5.1 and the internet server, which I don't administer, that the site is on is Netscape-enterprise 4.1. I'm hoping that there is something I can get fixed on the internet webserver.

I had a similar problem with style sheets on this site. The site was not getting style, again in gecko browsers. The problem there was the wrong header was being sent by the webserver. I found the problem and solution on the Netscape Devedge website and got that fixed by getting the header fixed. But I'm not sure if this is a header problem. And if it is I don't know what header the server is currently sending and what header should be sent. I diagnosed the CSS problem with the Live HTTP headers extension but no headers are appearing when I try to download an msi file from either server.

So currently the solution I'm stuck with is put in a note that tells gecko users to right click on the link and save the file that way. But I'm hoping for a better solution.

[jrduncans]

From your description, the server is sending the wrong MIME type. Most likely, the server has no particular setting for .msi files, and therefore is defaulting to text/plain. The administrator of your web server should add a MIME type for .msi files and set the type to application/octet-stream.

[Guest]

Yeah it's sending text/plain. I wasn't getting a http header because it was already cached...duh. I put in a request to have the MIME type changed. I've seen at least four different MIME types for MSI's on the web. I passed them all in with my request but did say that application/octet-stream is what IIS uses.