Add a link in webpage that links to a Windows Explorer window?

Question

My client wants to add a link to a webpage. When the link is clicked, Windows Explorer will open and go to an FTP site (e.g., ftp://ftp.domain.com/). I tried the following HTML

<a href="ftp://ftp.domain.com/">ftp://ftp.domain.com/</a>

Unfortunately, this will open the FTP site in the web browser which supports downloading only but not uploading.

I prefer a cross-browser solution, but an IE-only solution would be fine as well.

Answer 1

If you want to be able to upload specify credentials that have write permission:

<a href="ftp://username:[email protected]/">ftp://ftp.domain.com/</a>

But i'm not sure IE accepts that.

Answer 2

Are you sure anonymous users can actually upload files?
You can supply a username/password combination by using:

<a href="ftp://username:[email protected]">

If that fails, there's nothing you can do short of writing a web-based FTP client.

EDIT: AFAIK What program is used to open a protocol (FTP in this case) is defined by the browser and that's something you can't change.