Opening .exe files from website under SP2

[Guest]

We have an intranet at work, and a section on the links menu is for MS Office
programs. The links simply point to C:\programs\Office11\word.exe, etc. and
this is so that users can easily open up the various programs quickly.

This hasn't been an issue until we started testing SP2... all users with SP2
can now no longer use these links. When they click on them nothing happens -
no error messages or file not found pages, etc; nothing.
I have tried playing around with all the security settings, including
switching off the firewall and pop-up blocker, but to no avail.

Any thoughts?

 

[Galen]

In Zaph <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

We have an intranet at work, and a section on the links menu is for
MS Office programs. The links simply point to
C:\programs\Office11\word.exe, etc. and this is so that users can
easily open up the various programs quickly.

This hasn't been an issue until we started testing SP2... all users
with SP2 can now no longer use these links. When they click on them
nothing happens - no error messages or file not found pages, etc;
nothing.
I have tried playing around with all the security settings, including
switching off the firewall and pop-up blocker, but to no avail.

Any thoughts?

No... Well... I have one but I don't know if it will work and it's the only
thought I have. Open IE, click tools, click options, click advanced,
security section, allow active content to run on my computer? It's not the
safest thing in the world to do but it's worth a shot. As in, are these
links on an intranet webpage? If so then the above may very well do what
you're requesting.

Galen

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Zaph,

This is due to Local Machine Lockdown implemented in XP SP2. Local Machine
restrictions prevents even the Trusted sites from opening files in My
Computer Zone.

Unable to open local files from Internet Explorer window? IE6 SP1 and later:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/ie/elevlocalfile.htm

 

[Guest]

why, out of interest, aren't these office applications installed
individually on the users computers, or delivered by some other network
distribution system like Citrix/Novell etc etc that enables you to start and
applications from a remote network server (but is not an web site of any
sort, it appears as an icon on your computer, a short cut to the application
the server.

The Office suite is installed on all users machines, but it was requested of
me when I began to design the intranet that these links are there. The
intranet itself is intended to be the users main screen when working, so a
quick link to the programs was needed, instead of minimizing everything and
clickong on shortcuts or going through the start menu. It's just frustrating
that it works ok under SP1 but SP2 blocks them.