IE6 won't open *local* PHP files anymore!

problem with IE

[orangeoctane]

Hi guys,

I have a strange problem... used to be that Internet Explorer 6 would open PHP files that I had on my local machine (which is not a server). I would usually get some kind of "pop-up" warning from IE asking me if I wanted to view the file but then after that I could view the file just fine (minus the actual scripting stuff of course).

Now, whenever I try to open one of these PHP files with IE, I get the hourglass for 2 seconds and then nothing. No IE window, no error. Nothing.

IE will open up on its own and I can browse PHP files on the Internet all day long with no problems. But the ones on my local machine no longer open, where before they would even though I am not running any kind of server technology.

IE will also open HTML and CSS files on the local machine with no problem, just not PHP. Firefox has no issues at all with any files.

I'm running XP SP2 on a very stable machine that is rarely allowed internet access and is very strongly protected with Norton AV, ZoneAlarm and AdAware. I only use IE to check the websites that I personally build so little chance of picking up something nasty on the Net.

I've even tried reloading an older Ghost file that I *knew* didn't exhibit this problem but it does it even with that which is even more peculiar.

Any ideas?

Dave Fore

[hexdj]

I think if you're trying out your PHP, you need to have Apache server running on your pc, if you have it already installed maybe your service is stopped or needs to be restarted.

[encyclo]

Welcome to the forums orangeoctane!

It may well just be that the default file handler for .php files has changed in Windows. To restore it, right-click on the file, select "Open with...", select IE from the list and choose "Always open with this program" (I can't remember the exact wording, but it is something like that). :)

[orangeoctane]

Thanks for the reply.

I've never installed any kind of server technology on this machine. I only use it to design work for clients and upload via FTP. I browse online with a completely different machine.

I don't understand why it was working before and now all the sudden it stopped. Firefox has no problem displaying these pages locally. Of course it doesn't parse the scripts but it at least shows the HTML elements so I can see visually how the layout looks. IE suddenly refuses.

[orangeoctane]

thanks encyclo -

I tried that but same result. In fact, even when I choose for IE to be the program used to open the file, it still displays the Dreamweaver icon for all PHP files.

Uninstall Dreamweaver and then it shows the IE icon but still won't open the files.

[tedster]

If you have Windows auto-update on, Microsoft has been pushing out some "security enhancments" for IE over the past few days. I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet, but maybe this has created the change for you. I know they are hawks about letting scripts run from a local source.