Problem with Save As dialog in IE 7,8 in ASP.NET

Question

hello all, i'm trying to write code that download a file that located on the server. but the save as dialog wont open in IE.

i tried response.redirect, i tried

 Response.Clear();
 Response.ContentType = "text/csv"; 
 Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + fileNameDisplay); 
 Response.WriteFile(Server.MapPath(pathName + fileNameUnique)); 
 Response.Flush(); 
 Response.End(); 

every thing works on firefox and chrome , but not in internet explorer. i know that there is a security option for this in security ---> custom level ---> Downloads ---> automatic prompting for file downloads , that is always in disable mode and i need to switch it to enable in order it to work, but i don't wont that my users deal with this. how do i overcome this 'security problem' ?

is there any right way to deal with download files ? what is the right code to do that ?

thank you, gadym

Answer 1

You need explicitly tell that it is not opened content, add following headers:

Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + fname);
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Transfer-Encoding", "binary");

Also it is strongly recommend to set explicit file length

Response.AppendHeader("Content-Length", responseContentLength.ToString());

Answer 2

var info = new FileInfo(path);

Response.Clear();

Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", String.Concat("attachment; filename=", info.Name));
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Length", info.Length.ToString(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Transfer-Encoding", "binary");
Response.ContentType = "text/csv";

Response.WriteFile(info.FullName, true);
Response.End();

Answer 3

abatishchev, thank you for helping me. i found a soultion to my problem.

I created a dialog window (let's call it 'DownloadWindow') which holds an empty 'A HREF' tag. (it's shows - 'click here To Download')

after i click a download (EXCEL/CSV icon) button on my default page (which creates my file dynamicly), i load the dialog window ('DownloadWindow') and then i'm repleacing the 'a href' link to the file url i created earlier so my users can download it from my server.

Now, Internet explorer did pop up the open/save/cancel dialog box.

it's a bit annoying but it's solved my porblem.