IE Not Displaying Images for Local HTML files

[Jonathan488]

I created a tiny little (35k) web site that a client is going to use to demonstrate a distributed application at a convention where she won't have connectivity. The web site is a series of forms. Each page has the client's logo, a JPG file. She is going to put the web site on her desk top and open it with a browser.

So I pack the site in a ZIP directory and email it to our sales rep. First, I test it on my machine using Firefox, no problem. The rep can load and navigate the site, but he says that the logo will not display. IE shows the broken image graphic. On my machine, same problem with IE.

It looks like IE does not support <img src="logo.jpg"> when the page has a path like C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\Client\index.html. Both Firefox and Opera display the local page with image correctly. Why would IE behave differently when using the local disk instead of http?

Does anybody know of a workaround? "Tell the client to download and use Firefox ¦ Opera," is my first thought.

[scottmack]

>>>>> C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\Client\index.html

I just made a page with that path and the image shows in IE.
How did the index.html file get in his My documents folder? Why is it there? What did you email the client?

Your site should work anywhere if it is in a folder and the correct path to the images is there. Especially if all the files are in the same root dir.

[Jonathan488]

Thank you for testing. Upon trying to recreate the problem with an example that could be posted publicly, I discovered that my logo.jpg file was actually a GIF. When served by HTTP, IE has no problem displaying a GIF named logo.jpg. When accessed off the local disk, IE can't display the file. Firefox and Opera can displaying the image via HTTP, or by local file system.

Conclusion: IE cannot display a graphic with an incorrect extension (JPG instead of GIF) when accessed from the local file system, but it can display the same misnamed graphic via HTTP.