Microsoft KB Archive/266263

= BUG: Word 2000 and Excel 2000 Display ASP Source When Using MIME Type to Stream Data =

Article ID: 266263

Article Last Modified on 8/9/2004

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Word 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Active Server Pages 4.0

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This article was previously published under Q266263



SYMPTOMS
When using the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) content type in ASP to stream either a Microsoft Word 2000 or Microsoft Excel 2000 document, the client may receive either a blank document, static HTML, or the ASP source code rather than the intended document.



CAUSE
When navigating to a page that displays MIME content, Internet Explorer passes the URL of the page to the Office application to retrieve the data. Because Word 2000 and Excel 2000 can directly read content from an HTTP server, the application downloads and displays the physical ASP file that is specified in the URL instead of displaying the results of the ASP page as you would expect. This can result in either a blank document, static HTML, or the ASP source being displayed.

The blank document and static HTML situations are related. The server retrieves the file and tries to parse the HTML data, which removes all the ASP code and leaves the static HTML. If your ASP code does not contain any static HTML, you receive a blank page. Otherwise, you just see the static HTML, and possibly part of the ASP code.

The problem only occurs if your client system has write permissions to the ASP file on the Web server. If the client does not have write permissions, Office 2000 defaults to the Office 97 behavior and to an HTTP GET on the file.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

The problem has been corrected in SR1 for Office 2000. You can download the service pack from the following Web address:

http://office.microsoft.com



Steps to Reproduce Behavior
 Start Microsoft Notepad.  Paste the following code into Notepad: <%@ Language=VBScript %> <% Response.Buffer = TRUE Response.ContentType = &quot;application/vnd.ms-excel&quot; %>   <% Response.Write(&quot;This does not show up in Excel&quot;) %>    Save the file to a virtual directory on your Web server. Name the file MIMETest.asp. Close Notepad and start Internet Explorer.</li> In the Address bar, type http:// / /MIMETest.ASP, where is your Web server name and is the virtual directory in which you placed the HTML file. If the client has write permissions to the file, you see either a blank page or the ASP script source code.</li></ol>

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