Foxit Reader & downloading .pdfs from the web

[ChrisB]

Hello.
I’ve installed Foxit Reader v2.3 Build 2923 on several laptops for my users. When I try to go to my City’s website and download a .pdf, when I’m logged in as the Administrator, the download (right-click--> save target as…) works perfectly and I can open it up immediately in Foxit Reader.

However when I’m logged in as one of the user accounts, I can’t get the .pdf. It gives me the error:

“Microsoft Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer cannot download [document name] from www.ci.louisville.co.us
Internet Explorer was not able to open the Internet site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later”

If I promote that particular user account up to a Power User or Administrator account, I can download .pdfs just fine. But I want these users to only be in the role of User on the laptop. Is there any way that Foxit Reader can be used to download a .pdf from a link on a web page as just a User?

Please try this link to my City’s page (http://www.ci.louisville.co.us/ ) and try to download the “Entry Forms” link near the bottom of the page while you’re logged in as just a User (not a local admin).

Any help you can provide here would be greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, or need any information from me, please feel let me know.

Thanks, -Chris

Chris Browning, MCSE, A+
System Administrator
City of Louisville
www.ci.louisville.co.us

[christina]

Hello Chris,

Thanks for your input. So have you tried set other reader as default to open the link? Could it open successfully? At this moment, I will test in my PC,,,

[christina]

I can download the file and open it with reader in a normal user account. From the failure prompt, it seems it's windown's (IE) problem, not reader as it hasn't been dowloaded before open with reader.

Any questions , please let me know.

[ChrisB]

Hi Christina,

Yes, I have tried downloading .PDFs with bot Acrobat and Foxit on those laptops.

When logged in under an account that is just a User, if I change things back to Acrobat Reader 8.0 being the default program to read a .pdf, the doc will download just fine. No error.

But here's the other wierd part: if I change it again, so that Foxit Reader is default for .pdf, then i can go back to the Website, and download that specific doc via Foxit. But if I go to a page to download a .pdf (via a link) which I have never downloaded before, I still get that same error message, and cannot get the .pdf. So somehow it remembers which have been downloaded and which couldn't.

Is there any add-on for IE that I need to download/enable for IE in order for it to automatically recognize Foxit as the legitimate accessory? I have already tried enabling and disabling the "Adobe PDF Reader Link Helper" add-on in IE, with no effect on my download capability (while Foxit is set as default reader). But I see no way to force a new add-on in there.....maybe some acitveX script that you may have??

Thanks again,
-Chris

[ChrisB]

Oh yeah, one more thing:

If I clean out my IE cache (clear history, Delete Files, & Delete Cookies), when I go back to one of my .pdfs that I had downloaded before, it will no longer allow me to download that one.

So, you're right it has to do with IE. But is there anything that i can do about it for a User account? (again, this poses no problems for Power User or Administrator accounts.....but I don't want to give out those priveledges).

Thanks again,
-Chris

[christina]

Hello Crhis,

Please let me know your operation system and version of IE.

[ChrisB]

Hi Christina,

Running XP Pro and IE 6

Thanks,
-Chris

[ChrisB]

I upgraded one of the laptops to IE7 and have no problems downloading a .pdf while logged in as a user.

So I sorta solved this one myself, but I'd rather not have to install the upgrade to IE7 for everyone that needs this. These users aren't exactly cutting-edge people who love change.

If any of your customers have a similar problem, I'd say you should recommend that they upgrade......unless you find some fix for IE6.

Thanks,
-Chris

[christina]

Hello Chris,

Thanks a lot for your comments. I will let our testing team make an investigation on IE6. Thanks again.

[christina]

Hello Chris,

Have you ever re-insatlled your IE6 after got the error message?

[ChrisB]

No, I never tried re-installing IE6. This happened across all 8 laptops that I distributed to my group of users, so it wasn't a matter of it being a bad install on one of them. Also the laptops were all brand new XP Pro SP2 from Dell, so no time for them to have accrued any real junk leftovers/cookies/viruses.

It turns out that my users were all fine with the change to IE7, so this fix wasn't really as big a deal as I thought it would be.

Thanks,
-Chris