Microsoft KB Archive/294899

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

Article ID: 294899

Article Last Modified on 1/31/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 128-Bit Edition
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01
 * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0

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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 &quot;/&quot;.

Characters other than those in the &quot;reserved&quot; and &quot;unsafe&quot; sets (outlined in section 3.2) are equivalent to their &quot;&quot;%&quot; HEX HEX&quot; encodings.

