Internet Explorer Cannot Download Office Documents from an IIS Server When Content Expiration Is Set to Expire Immediately (317208)
The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Internet Information Services version 5.1
- Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0
- Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6 for Windows 2000
This article was previously published under Q317208 SYMPTOMS
When you try to download Microsoft Office documents from a server running Internet Information Services (IIS) to a client using Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6, you may receive the following error messages:
Internet Explorer cannot download File.doc from ServerName.
Internet Explorer was not able to open this Internet Site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later."
Note:This problem is not reproducible with any other known file types.
CAUSE
This behavior occurs when the Content Expiration option in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Headers, within IIS, is set to Expire Immediately. Internet Explorer must save any Microsoft Office file to the local cache directory, and then use the associated application to open the file. If you set Content Expiration to Expire Immediately, the Office documents are not cached locally and the operation fails.
RESOLUTION
When you configure the HTTP Headers within IIS for the Virtual Directory (or for the Directory) that contains Office documents, do not set Content Expiration to Expire Immediately.
MORE INFORMATION
This is a known cause of slow performance on a Web server running IIS.
This is not a best practice.
| Modification Type: | Major | Last Reviewed: | 6/30/2004 |
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| Keywords: | kbdocerr kbpending kbprb KB317208 |
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