TIFF file save as (IE 5.5 SP2)

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Anyone know if individual file types can be excluded from the security settings which were applied by our recent IE 5.5 SP2 update?

The Federal Reserve software used to display images of checks, etc. but since getting the IE 5.5 SP2 update this morning the browser is popping up a “file save as” dialog forcing the Fedline users to save the files each time they need to view the item.

Is there a registry setting which can be changed to revert the way TIFF files are treated?

This is NT 4.o SP6.

Thanks,

Jester

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How were they treated before? You should be able to open Windows Explorer, then click on View – Folder Options and find TIFF files listed on the File Types tab. Clear the checkbox for that filetype that reads “Confirm open after download” and see if the behavior is what you expect it to be.

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As I stated in the original post the web based Fed software displayed the images of the checks, etc. without going through the “file save as” process. The images were never downloaded they were simply displayed on screen without any user intervention. That is the behavior desired. Only after the SP2 upgrade to IE 5.5 did the whole process get mucked up with the “file save as” step.

Users of the software searched for account information, called up the pertinent record and when they clicked on a button within the Fed software the image appeared, end of story. No “file save as”.

It is as if the SP2 upgrade is treating the TIFF images as potentially bad boys that will only be downloaded prior to viewing.

The Wang image application on the NT boxes is still showing correctly in the file type and “open” is the default action for this type of file and they do open when double clicked. But that is not something we were doing to display these files previous to the SP2 upgrade.

-Jester

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Sorry, I missed the statement in your original post regarding the software used to view the images. However, I wasn’t suggesting that you check the default action, but instead to look for a checkbox that reads “Confirm open after download” which would result in a prompt to open or save such as you seem to be experiencing.

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None of the NT boxes have “Confirm Open After Download” checked. All have “Enable Quick View” checked but changing any of these settings makes no difference.

Have submitted this to the Fed rep at the Minnesota Federal Reserve who has been out contact hoping that they have seen this before.

-Jester

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Will see what happens on Tuesday when I return from a pager free long weekend drive through New England… no keyboards, monitors, phones or nuthin’.

-Jester

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Sometimes the dialog has a checkbox to the effect of “stop asking me this.” Does that work?

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I will ask the department to confirm this but I do not believe there is such a feature. Usually this type of question appears when the browser is warning you of a potential security issue or providing some sort of caution. However, this is not the typical screen since it has already at the “file save as” screen with no other panels or menus in advance of the file save as box.

-Jester

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(Edited by jscher2000 on 03-Jul-03 15:41. Fixed broken link.)

Okay, the light bulb finally went on. Service Pack 2 for IE 5.5 eliminated support for “Netscape style” plug-ins and required ActiveX replacements. See Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 303401 – Netscape-Style Plug-ins Do Not Work After Upgrading Internet Explorer. Can you check with the plug-in manufacturer on this issue? They might have a support page or update for it. (Note: this will affect QuickTime Player, too, if you use an older version.)

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Have submitted this issue to the contact at the Minnesota Federal Reserve and asked if they have seen this and would the MS KB article you referenced point to the issue we have encountered.

Thanks,

-Jester

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I just installed AlternaTIFF and it works fine with recent versions of IE (in fact, it has both ActiveX and Netscape plug-in installers available). Don’t have the link handy, but you could find it on Google. It’s freeware.

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This really is not a solution since we can display the TIFF files whenever we double click them. The issue is what in the IE 5.5 SP2 has changed the behavior of the Fed software since the clients used to click on a button within the Fed software to display the files. Now the result is a “file save as” dialog which is not the desired result.

We don’t need another utility to display the files since the default Wang image utility works fine when we double click TIFFs.

We need to revert the behavior of IE 5.5 to the way it was prior to the SP2 upgrade.

-Jester

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Maybe Wang has an update? You can’t be the only customers having this problem.

I suspect the only way to revert IE 5.5 SP2 is to uninstall it and get an earlier 5.5 or 5.01 from a dusty corner. I wish I had better news.

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Returning to your original inquiry about Registry keys, look at these keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTMIMEDatabaseContent Typeimage/tiff
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTMIMEDatabaseContent Typeimage/x-tiff

And see if you have a CLSID there that matches up with the Wang imaging control. If so, are there any odd settings under the associated Wang keys?

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Thank you for the pointers. I will poke around as well as bang on the Fed’s door with more vigor.

-Jester

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(Excessive Verbosity Warning — Read at your own Risk)

I believe Jefferson is on the right track. This is likely a MIME Content Type issue and an ActiveX vs. plugin issue.

It has nothing to do with the file association of TIFF files that already exist on your computer. If the Wang image viewing program does not have an ActiveX version, I would highly consider giving the program Jefferson recommends (AlternaTIFF) a try. (Or, if you love to edit the registry, see below! ).
______________

A logical explanation is that the upgrade eliminated the Netscape-style plug-in that allowed the Wang imaging program to display the checks. So, unless Wang upgraded and created an ActiveX version, the program is never going to work IN THAT FASHION. (but… see below)

The buttons in the Fed program are simply “hot links” (hyertext links or ‘anchors’) to the image files. When the button is clicked, the browser queries the associated MIME Content Type data in the registry for that given File Extension. On my computer, both .tif and .tiff have a Content Type of image/tiff.

If I go to the MIMEDatabaseContent Type section of my registry, I see ONLY the “Extension=”.tiff” value — there is no Class Identifier (CLSID) value. THEREFORE, I know that any hyperlink to a .tif or .tiff in my browser will NOT be displayed automatically by the associated program, but instead IE will try to download the image.

However, if I look at imagejpeg I see something different. There IS a CLSID entry there — it is {25336920-03F9-11cf-8FD0-00AA00686F13}. If I investigate this number in the CLSID section of the registry I find it corresponds to an “HTML Document”. I can also see that the “InProcServer” for this is C:WINDOWSSYSTEMMSHTML.DLL — which an Application Extension for Internet Explorer.

Therefore, when I click on a hyperlink to a JPEG image, I am NOT offered a download dialog box, instead I get the image open in a Internet Explorer window as an “HTML document”.
________________________________________________________________________

Well, moving right along. Can we FOOL the browser object (the Fed program) into opening a .tif file in the Wang Imaging software?? Well, I think we can… Let’s see.

First, I am guessing that the Wang program in question is the one that came with Windows9x?? I believe in later versions, that is called the “Kodak” image program — but otherwise looks the same. We need to know the ‘executable’ path for the program in question. In my case, it is: C:Windowskodakimg.exe.

Next, you need to create a CLSID String Value in:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTMIMEDatabaseContent Typeimage/tiff
_________

See the image below. Then you need to create a new CLSID sub-key in:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID

This sub-key MUST have the same numerical name as the CLSID number you listed above, and it must have the correct format — and it must be a unique number. For simplicity, I chose:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000123456789}

Now, this must have a sub-sub-key named InprocServer32, and the (Default Value) for this must be the path to the program in question. For example, on my computer it is:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000123456789}InProcServer32
(Default)=”C:Windowskodakimg.exe”

I will stick an image below this. Obviously, your path may differ (perhaps, C:Windowswangimg.exe).

Give that a try and you might be pleasantly surprised. Or not. .

Here are the modifications as a .reg file:

—————————————–

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTMIMEDatabaseContent Typeimage/tiff]
“Extension”=”.tiff”
“CLSID”=”{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000123456789}”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000123456789}InProcServer32]
@=”C:Windowskodakimg.exe”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000123456789}ProgID]
@=”TIFImage.Document”

————————————————-

For this to work correctly, you need to make sure the “Content Type” for HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.tif and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.tiff is defined as image/tiff. Plus, you will need to modify the path to point to the correct executable file. Remember, that in .reg file you need to use ‘double back-slashes’ between folders.

See below, but to activate the Edit Flags — and get rid of the Download Dialog box — you need to stick that “ProgID” key in there also.

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This is the promised second image.

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> you might be pleasantly surprised. Or not.

Yes, this is messy, isn’t it? The logic seems right, but I’m not sure whether to believe that the GUIDs for controls are always the same for every version of Windows, so it’s worth checking before running the .reg file.

I wonder whether you can trick Windows into taking care of this by re-registering the OCX control. I can never remember the syntax for that, something like regserver blah blah blah. But if that doesn’t work, then registry surgery might be required.

Here are my Windows XP Pro keys after installing AlternaTIFF as the browser “plug-in” to handle TIFF files. (Note that at the Windows Explorer level, the built-in image control kicks in.)

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Jeff, the point is, you really don’t need on ActiveX (OCX) control if you do it my way. I just did it on this WinNT machine — my prior box was Win98.

It works fine — IF the goal is to open the .tif anchor in the separate program. I believe the ActiveX component is ONLY needed if you want to open the file INSIDE of an Internet Explorer window.

The actual numbers don’t matter — as long as they are unique. Your CLSID numbers were supplied by AlternaTIFF and I just made mine up. It is not relevant, as long as the CLSID number is not already used by another registered program/control/DLL. The CLSID does not have to belong to an ActiveX control — I can make the InprocServer32 value point to an executable (e.g., wangimg.exe) and it works fine. It does NOT open inside of IE, but the image opens nonetheless.

I don’t think there is a Wang ActiveX Control that can be registered, so using regsvr32.exe is not likely going to help…
__________________________

If this shows up correctly, this is a .bmp file that demonstrates the Wang Imaging software displaying the only .tif I could find on this old WinNT box. This is done by setting up the registry as I have outlined, and creating a simple HTML file with an anchor pointing to the .tif file. You MIGHT still need to adjust the Edit Flags on the FIle Type to get rid of the Download dialog box, but that too can be done.

It is all a matter of how much one wants to make this happen….
___________________________________________________

Ah… I found one more necessary step — and I will modify my earlier posts to contain this. To activate the appropriate “Edit Flags” for the “TIFImage.Document” File Type, one MUST list the ProgID sub-key and it must point to the correct File Type. This entry must be made:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000123456789}ProgID
(Default)=”TIFImage.Document”

ONLY after this is in place will you be able to set the Edit Flags and have them work correctly. For clarity, using the Folder Options | File Types dialog box and checking/unchedking the “Confirm Open After Download” is an example of setting the Edit Flags.

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Thank you for the suggestions and the helpful detail.

Makes me want to hustle back to work and muck about with someone else’s PC.
Hah….

-Jester

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Well, you can have it work the way you want to — or not. The chose is yours.

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Please explain your statement.

I was thanking you for the suggestion and being light hearted about not being at work to dive in to the task.

-Jester

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Sorry, I mis-interpretted your response as sarcasm. No problem.

Good luck. I believe it will do what you want — as long as you want the program to open outside of IE (that is, not embedded in a browser window).

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Installing the suggested program Alternatiff has eliminated the need to go through the “file save as” routine and restored the ability of the group to simply display the TIFF images.

Thanks to all who provided suggestions.

-Jester

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