Plain text file opens in IE6 instead of Notepad

[BitBucket]

Hi:

When I open a .txt plain text (.txt) file in Internet Explorer 6 SP2,
it opens in a browser window, not notepad.exe. The problem is that
there is evidently no format option in the browser to wrap long lines,
so they extend way over to the right and require using the scroll bar
to view.

This is a plain text file, with no http or html/xml code; no <Pre>
tags apply here. The .txt file extension has been properly associated
with the notepad.exe application.

The BrowserFlags registry key has been added under
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\txtfile and values of 8 and 9 have been tried with no
success. (cf. Microsoft KB162059 at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/162059/EN-US/ ("How to configure
Internet Explorer to open Office documents in the appropriate Office
program instead of in Internet Explorer") No documentation of
BrowerFlags and its various values and functionality has been found.

The "Browse in same window" option for the file extensions I've looked
at so far have all been grayed/greyed out (disabled). (Both for
Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows XP Pro SP2). True also for .pdf
file extension.

The CLSID for the plaintext MIME type is Internet Explorer:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318756/
PRB: Excel and Word Content Do Not Stream as Expected from ASP .NET

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\text/plain
CLSID {25336920-03F9-11cf-8FD0-00AA00686F13}
Encoding 07 00 00 00
Extension .txt

Same CLSID as for text/html -- is Internet Explorer.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{25336920-03F9-11CF-8FD0-00AA00686F13}\BrowseInPlace
No default key value set here.

As far as I can tell, this problem (and similar ones) have been
floating around for a number of years. Most queries on the subject
have gone unanswered, or applied to some but not other or even most
situations.

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide with this vexing
problem.

-- Roy Zider




Key terms:

no word wrap in Internet Explorer 6
plaintext plain text .txt file word wrap problem
browse in same window grayed out disabled
in-place activation
browserflags
ftp and http open .txt file in IE6 instead of notepad
Windows XP Pro SP2
Windows Server 2003 SP1
Internet Explorer SP2 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp

 

[Guest]

Hi all,

I hit the same problem. I find a solution but it is quite strange. I hope it
can help you to investigate the problem.

The "Browse in same window" option for the file extensions for "txt" is
disabled. But after I delete the "TXT" file extensions and recreate the "TXT"
file extensions with configure "notepad" to open it. The plain txt will not
use IE to open. It is prompt a notepad to open the txt file.

Please correct me if my finding is wrong and give me a explanation why this
phenomenon.

Regards,
Kenny

 

[jteichman]

Hello,

I also experienced this problem and used the same fix as Kenny -
deleting and then recreating the TXT file association.

One downside of doing this is that you no longer have "Text Document"
as a choice in the right-click New shell context menu.

After some experimentation I found that the culprit is the
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.txt\Content Type value which originally is set to
"text/plain". If you delete the Content Type value the txt files open
properly in Notepad.

The question I have is whether this value is necessary and if it is
installed by Microsoft updates/service packs. My users started to
experience this problem when some patches were applied to IE and I am
afraid that the next round of updates will just recreate the problem.

Does anyone have any further info on this?