Disabling “Open” on IE’s File Download Dialog

internet explorer

Is there a way to disable the Open (or Run for executables) option on Internet Explorer?
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I am pretty much just trying to find a way to only allow the user to save or cancel, though simply saving works fine too. Every source I can find on Google just provides information on re-enabling this dialog box if you unchecked the "Always Ask…" box and the file automatically opens.

The problem I'm trying to prevent by disabling the "Open" option is that a lot of students, for some reason, will open a Word document from their eMail, WebCT, Moodle, or whatever and start making changes after clicking the "Open" option on the dialog. This just saves to the file that only exists in Temporary Internet Files so once they close Word to e-mail it to their professor they can't find the file.

I think just disabling the option to 'Open' and just forcing the user to save the file before working on it would prevent this problem. The only issue is that I can't figure out the best way to get this done.

Best Answer

If you are in control of the webpages from where the students download from, try to add the Meta option described in this link.

Simply add the following block right after the <html> tag :

<head>
  <META name="DownloadOptions" content="noopen">
</head>

If content is not on pages you control, maybe it is possible to add this block automatically through a proxy or 3rd party program.

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