IE 6 won't open CSV file converts to xls

External Since: Jul 28, 2007 Posts: 1

In December 2006 I reinstalled ie.inf in our corporate image as we
were having problems with blackboard forum's not opening. Doing this
fixed the particular problem at the time.

IE changed from version
Version: 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519
to
Version: 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254

We now have an oracle based program that we need to open .csv files
from a link in IE, in build 2254 we click on the file select open, IE
says the file is "read only" which it isn't then converts the .csv to
an .xls file and does not convert the csv data so it still contains
the data in "quotes" .

If I test in the old image build 1519 the file will open automatically
as a .csv keep the extension .csv and excel converts the csv data so
it views in the correct columns and format.

In build 2254 I can only save the file as .csv then open excel and
open the file and it's all good but our users want to be able to open
directly from IE. Works fine in Firefox on both new and old images.

I have tried reinstalling office but this does not fix,
I have also upgraded IE to IE 7 on build 2254 and it fixes the
problem.
Made sure the file type .csv opens in excel
Ran regmon and filemon but there are so many changes from before and
after ie reinstall.

We can't upgrade to IE7 as other web based apps do not work and we
cannot roll back to the December image as we have too many users with
the new image.

Just wondering if anyone could tell me how I can roll back to the
previous version of IE OR better still if there is a registry key I
could change to force IE to open a .csv as a .csv it seems that IE is
changing it to .xls. I can then package with wise and deploy to
affected systems.

Hope this is not too confusing, thanks for any help
Cat

External Since: Mar 28, 2006 Posts: 126

Hi Bec,

Do you have an ISAM.ini on your builds?
It contains information about how csv and text files are to be parsed and
what delimiter character is to be used. This would explain your csv file
containing the " characters.
It could also have something to do with excels settings (probably something
like excel.ini) that will tell excel what the default delimiter to use when
loading csv files.

Possible IE settings to look at are Security tab - "Open files based on
content, not file extension". Note that this is a Zone setting, so if you
build changes the zones of your intranet sites then this may be a cause.

Regards.
"Bec" wrote in message

> In December 2006 I reinstalled ie.inf in our corporate image as we
> were having problems with blackboard forum's not opening. Doing this
> fixed the particular problem at the time.
>
> IE changed from version
> Version: 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519
> to
> Version: 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254
>
> We now have an oracle based program that we need to open .csv files
> from a link in IE, in build 2254 we click on the file select open, IE
> says the file is "read only" which it isn't then converts the .csv to
> an .xls file and does not convert the csv data so it still contains
> the data in "quotes" .
>
> If I test in the old image build 1519 the file will open automatically
> as a .csv keep the extension .csv and excel converts the csv data so
> it views in the correct columns and format.
>
> In build 2254 I can only save the file as .csv then open excel and
> open the file and it's all good but our users want to be able to open
> directly from IE. Works fine in Firefox on both new and old images.
>
> I have tried reinstalling office but this does not fix,
> I have also upgraded IE to IE 7 on build 2254 and it fixes the
> problem.
> Made sure the file type .csv opens in excel
> Ran regmon and filemon but there are so many changes from before and
> after ie reinstall.
>
> We can't upgrade to IE7 as other web based apps do not work and we
> cannot roll back to the December image as we have too many users with
> the new image.
>
> Just wondering if anyone could tell me how I can roll back to the
> previous version of IE OR better still if there is a registry key I
> could change to force IE to open a .csv as a .csv it seems that IE is
> changing it to .xls. I can then package with wise and deploy to
> affected systems.
>
> Hope this is not too confusing, thanks for any help
> Cat
>