How do you get the File:// protocol to work in IE8?

Question

I am running a website on my local machine ("http://localhost/asdf") and trying to get some file:// protocol links to work. In reality I'm trying to open a folder, not a specific file, but I can't get either to work.

I've put localhost in my "trusted zone", I've tried every combo of "file" ,":", some number of "/" and then a whole bunch of different paths, but encoded and not encoded.

Nothing I do causes anything to open when I click on the link. If I copy the link destination, and paste that in the browser address window, then it works as expected.

Anyone know the secret?

Answer 1

Local server is something different than just file://, that should work in IE as it is. However, if you probably want to check out apache alias and link that folder to your server. Btw, you should not use file protocol anyway, it will not work on production.