Hello,

I'm not sure this is the place for this but: I am looking for a way for my users to click on a link on a web page (intranet) and have that link open an actual application that's installed on the user's computer?

Eg: Microsoft Word as link on the web page that will actually open the Office Application.

Thanks for any help.

you could try setting the link to the exe file

ex:

<a href="C:\Program\Files\Office\word.exe">Word</a>

however i doubt that it will work, worth a try tho

It works. The problem in it would be that you would get the Open/Save file dialog as a result, and I don't think it can be suppressed.

It doesn't work. I click the link and nothing happens.

Actually, it does work! But, it asks if I want to run or save the .exe file. How can I get it to open right away without asking?

this seems to be a big question - ive asked it myself and after hours of googling no avail. whats the alternative to this is there anyway to use a web document to locally execute files from the disk?

Thanks,
Elysia

I don't think so, and actually I would hope not. This would be the malicious web hacker's ultimate dream.

This post has been edited by Glenn9999: Feb 22 2008, 02:26 AM

File types will open based in the designated MIME application. Browsers generally can open pdf and doc files, for instance. Browsers will often offer a choice to "download" or "open" the file for common file types, such as wav, doc, pdf mp3 and the like. But, I am probably not saying anything you did not already know.

As noted in another comment, it is possible to create security risks by allowing variables to be passed through to programs that execute locally. You would not, for instance, want to designate a MIME type that executes a file with "cmd.exe", since that would allow a webpage to execute anything on your windows computer with the appropriate link.

In Firefox, the MIME Edit extension will allow the user to edit MIME types and create custom launchers. So, if word is not already set to execute when a link to a doc file is clicked on, that reference may be added by the user.

If you are setting up the user's computers, then you can go quite a bit beyond this. My system tracks documents via a web-based MySQL database, unencrypts them via gpg, edits them in the appropriate application, re-encrypts them and then stores them back to where they belong -- all with a single click on a link.

To do this, though, it is necessary to set up custom MIME extensions in the browser and create appropriate batch/script files -- and if storing to the server, requires upload privileges. If accessing local documents, it requires the "locallink" extension, since for security reasons, Firefox does not naturally allow local links to execute. In Linux, with an SSH connection, it's possible to allow all of the scripts and documents to reside in a directory on the webserver and access it as though it is a local directory, which simplifies mirroring/distribution issues. I think there may be software to establish an SSH remote folder as a local folder in Windows, but the only software I have seen on this is proprietary and I haven't tried it.

Once again, setting this up for multiple users requires some careful thought to access privileges and security. You do not want a disgruntled employee or friend to have sufficient access to compromise your system. I don't share my system with anyone, so this allows me relatively easy access to my documents and files from anywhere that has a high speed connection and a computer. I just need my live Linux DVD or the right programs on a flash drive.

This post has been edited by basd: Feb 23 2008, 04:47 PM