Member Avatar for joao_pimentel

Hi

I work for a company where we all share a file system with a lot of documents, mainly Word doc, Excel and many others.

Anyone can access, change, read or write all documents. No security problems involved!

I want to create a html web page, to work with any browser, where links open the file directly on its location on file system instead of downloading it locally...

May you kindly help me?

Many thanks

João

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: the behavior you describe (works in IE, Chrome downloads) is expected. IE integrates with the Windows shell and the intranet/trusted-zones model, so it will happily hand a UNC/file URI to Word. Modern Chromium-based browsers restrict or treat file:// links differently for security reasons, so they often download instead of launching a local app. ’s Google Docs idea would avoid local-file problems, but you already explained you do not want files on external servers.

Practical options that work reliably in corporate intranets

  • Use file URIs only when the HTML page itself is opened from the file system (file://). Example anchors:

    <a href="file:///C:/path/to/document.docx">Open local file</a>
    <a href="file://server/share/folder/document.docx">Open network share</a>

    Note: spaces must be URL-encoded (use %20). If your page is served over HTTP(S), Chrome/Firefox will likely block or force download.

  • For a cross-browser, zero-account solution, host the files on an intranet web server and enable WebDAV (or use SharePoint). Office talks to WebDAV servers and can open/edit documents directly over HTTP. See Microsoft’s IIS WebDAV guidance for setup IIS WebDAV.

  • Another approach is Office URI handlers (Office protocol scheme) to launch Word/Excel directly. These are client-side and will open Office with a given URL (requires Office installed). See Microsoft’s Office URI schemes .

Troubleshooting tips: if Chrome downloads, either open the HTML as file://, move files to an HTTP/WebDAV server, or use an Office URI. Do not relax browser security globally; instead pick one of the server/protocol options above for a stable, maintainable setup.

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Member Avatar for joao_pimentel

Hi

I have already thought about Google Docs as you suggested but I don't want to impose everyone on the company to have Google account, and the files I mentioned are supposed to be located on our file system, not on the Google servers...

Thanks any way for the quick reply

Member Avatar for joao_pimentel

Actually it seems to work fine with IE, but Chrome always download those files...

Member Avatar for joao_pimentel

Anyone has suggestions regarding these issues???

I would appreciate some help!!!

Thanks

João

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