W3C Validator and WinXP SP2

Since SP2, uploaded files won't validate

[Dave McClure]

Since installing XP SP2 I can't use the W3C Validator in upload mode. I can validate files on my website, but identical files on the PC give this error message from W3C -
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Sorry, I am unable to validate this document because its content type is text/plain, which is not currently supported by this service.

The Content-Type field is sent by your web server (or web browser if you use the file upload interface) and depends on its configuration. Commonly, web servers will have a mapping of filename extensions (such as ".html") to MIME Content-Type values (such as text/html).
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This is telling me that something has changed in IE6 with SP2, but I can't work out what to do about it. Anyone else had this problem?

[Robin_reala]

Load regedit (warning, if you've not used it before be careful as you can damage your settings), then go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Classes

Scroll down to .htm and .html and see what their ContentType key is set to. I suspect you'll find it set to text/plain where it should be text/html.

[bedlam]

I first encountered this last week, but only with applicatons like Notepad and Wordpad. If I save an html doc with something that's built for coding (like Crimson Editor etc), the validator is quite happy with the file...

-B

[Dave McClure]

Thanks both, for speedy replies.
I tried the registry edit, but the content type was already correct (text/html). The value 'perceived type' was set to 'text' I tried setting it to text/html but it made no difference (so I put it back!) The problem must have something to do with the way IE SP2 delivers the files to W3C, because files that worked perfectly before SP2 now give the error message, and clearly the files themselves have not changed. I don't think it can have anything to do with the application on which the files are written. I've used Notepad, Textpad and HTML-kit all of which are valid html authoring tools, no?

[kaled]

Simplest solution - use another browser : Firefox or Opera should be ok.

Kaled.

[Dave McClure]

"use another browser"
That's probably good advice. Actually, I think SP2 has 'broken' IE6 by adding security features that are likely to frighten the average non-tech user into not allowing even the most innocent javascript to run. This effectively kills lots of perfectly good websites.