Clicking file:// link modifies source file properties

[Guest]

On my corporate Intranet, I've put a simple hyperlink to an executable file
<a href='file://MyShare/MySetup.exe'>MySetup</a>
When a user clicks this link, they are of course presented with the file
download security prompts, but after they choose to run the program insead of
saving it, the modified date of MySetup.exe is CHANGED to the current date
and time. Of course this only happens if the user has write access to the
share and the file attribute is not read-only. This is definitely a browser
problem because if the user runs the exe on the share without using a
hyperlink, the file date remains unchanged.

Besides looking for workarounds like restricting access or using iframe
tags, I'd really like an explanation of this undesirable behaviour.

 

[neil davis]

Does this happen with a normal file shortcut if the users have write
access and the exe is not marked read-only?

 

[Guest]

No, the date is not changed by any of these methods:
- Shortcut_to_MySetup.exe.lnk in Windows Explorer.
- Hyperlink to a BAT file which launches the EXE (the date of the bat gets
changed instead).
- Clicking the EXE file in an iframe.
- Browsing to \\MyShare with "Internet Explorer" and clicking the EXE file.

 

[Guest]

Incidentally, if I choose to SAVE the target of the hyperlink instead of
RUNning it, the newly saved version of the file also gets the date changed to
the present time.

I should have added the important fact that the file share is on my IIS web
server, so the web server is able to pass credentials to the file (either
anonymous IUSR_WEBSERVER or integrated windows authentication).

If I move the files from \\WebServer\MyShare\ to \\AnotherServer\MyShare\
then the file dates remain unchanged, as expected. This is probably the
wisest solution anyway, but I'm still curious about Microsoft's intentions
with this "feature".