Office files don't download correctly from a Web Server; saved as zip files instead

Problem

Browser links to Office 2007 and later files (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, PPSX, etc) don't work the way you'd expect them to.

Instead, when you click the link:

• You get 404/File Not Found errors or
• The browser displays gibberish or
• The browser downloads the file but saves it as a ZIP file.

You may get the same behavior when trying to open an Office file attached to an email.

Solution

The site's webmaster needs to add the new Office 2007 file types to the web server's MIME table. You may not understand what that means or how to do it, but the webmaster should. Point them to this page and ask them to look at the following links:

• IIS 6.0 does not serve unknown MIME types
• Or if your web site uses the Apache web server, see this
• Here's a list of suggested MIME types: Content types for Open XML Documents

Workaround

While you're waiting for the new MIME types to be added, here are some workarounds.

If you're the one posting the files for others to download, put Office 2007 documents into a ZIP file. Upload and link to that instead (and explain to users that they'll have to extract your files from the ZIP after downloading it).

If you're the one downloading the files one of these suggestions will help:

• Save the files to any convenient place on your local drive then rename them to remove the .ZIP extension that MS Internet Explorer adds.
• Use another browser like Firefox or Opera; they don't "help" you by giving downloaded files incorrect extensions when you save the file.
• In the Security settings for Microsoft Internet Explorer (Tools, Security tab), click Custom Level. Scroll down to the option labeled Open files based on content, not file extension. Change the option from Enable to Disable.. Click OK and restart the browser. That should solve the problem on your own computer.

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