IE6 and WinXP Pro - Automatically opens .txt files with Notepad (no File Save/Open dialog)

[Sue Morton]

Hello, I hope someone here can help.

I have one machine with Win2k Pro and IE6, and one machine with WinXP Pro
and IE6.

On the Win2k machine, when I visit a certain website and left-click an icon
there to cause a download of a .txt file, I get the familiar dialog box
asking to Open or Save the file. This behavior is just as I expect and is
what I want.

On the WinXP machine, however, I see the dialog box flash briefly and then
Notepad is automatically launched and opens the .txt file - the name has [1]
appended to it. E.G. if the filename is thistextfile.txt, the opened file
on WinXP machine is thistextfile[1].txt.

I don't know what this website is using to initiate the download, and it
doesn't accept a right-click, so using the shortcut menu and "save target
as" is not possible.

Clearly WinXP/IE6 and Win2k/IE6 are interpreting this request differently.
How can I stop WinXP/IE6 from automatically launching Notepad, and make it
behave like Win2k/IE6 does in this case? I have searched the microsoft.com
kb under Windows XP and under Internet Explorer, but so far cannot find out
how this is controlled.

Thanks in advance for any assistance,

 

[war17]

Go to Control Panel > Folder Options > File Types. Scroll down to TXT and
highlight it. Click Advanced. Check "Confirm open after download".

 

[Sue Morton]

Thank you Warren, that was it. I had already looked as far as the
'advanced' button on .txt, but had stopped there -- thinking, I don't want
to change the associated program with .txt, I just want IE to not launch
it...

Didn't know what the "confirm open after download" checkbox was for, so
didn't try it. Now I know. Thanks again.