Internet Explorer Does Not Open a File When a File Name Contains A Percent Character and Numeric Values (294899)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 for Windows NT 4.0
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 for Windows NT 4.0
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 for Windows NT 4.0
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 for Windows 2000
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 for Windows 2000
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 for Windows 2000
This article was previously published under Q294899

SYMPTOMS

In Internet Explorer, when you open a document or a spreadsheet that contains a percent (%) character and two numeric values in the file name, Internet Explorer attempts to resolve the numeric value as a hex value, instead of opening the file.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

You may observe this same behavior when you use any browser that complies with the standards detailed in Request for Comments (RFC) 2068. In section 3.2.3 of this RFC, the standards state:

When you compare two Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to determine if they match or not, a client computer must use a case-sensitive octet-by-octet comparison of the entire URIs, with these exceptions:
  • A port that is either empty or not listed is equivalent to the default port for that URI.
  • Any comparisons of host names must be case insensitive.
  • Any comparisons of scheme names must be case insensitive.
  • An empty abs_path is equivalent to an abs_path of "/".
Characters other than those in the "reserved" and "unsafe" sets (outlined in section 3.2) are equivalent to their ""%" HEX HEX" encodings.

REFERENCES

For more information about RFC 2068, refer to the following Network Working Group Web site:

http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/rfc/rfc2068.html

If this location is unavailable, perform a search on the Internet for other Web sites that host RFC documentation.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:1/14/2006
Keywords:kbprb KB294899
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