Matt Woodward’s posterous

Matt Woodward’s posterous

Matthew Woodward  //  * CFML, Grails, and Java Developer
* Principal IT Specialist, US Senate
* Open BlueDragon Steering Committee Member
* All-Around Geek

 
Jan 27 / 6:40am

Remember Kids, IE Security Settings Affect Firefox Too

by Matthew Woodward
I was configuring a new Windows Server VM yesterday, and the first thing I do on a blank Windows server is launch IE once and once only to download Firefox. To avoid what I call the "trusted site dance" with Mozilla's mirrors since IE doesn't let you add a trusted site and then continue the download you started, I go into IE security settings and make the following setting changes to the Internet zone:
  • Enable file downloads
  • "Prompt" for launching applications and unsafe files
  • "Prompt" for launching programs and files in an IFRAME
Note that these are the settings you need to change if you get the "Your current security settings do not allow this file to be downloaded" error.

This time I decided to be a good boy and change these settings back to disabled after I was done, and then I launched Firefox to download Java and some other things I need to install on this server. This probably shouldn't have surprised me, but when I tried to download anything in Firefox, it would download a 0 byte file and the download dialog box would read "Canceled."

I went back into IE's security options and re-enabled file downloads and voila, I could download files again.

I understand the fact that IE's security settings tab is really a shortcut for Internet Options at the OS level, but this is still pretty irritating. What if I want file downloads disabled for IE but enabled for Firefox? Guess you can't do that. Thanks Windows.

2 comments

Feb 02, 2010
coreygilmore said...
I use the solution you posted a few months ago. I prefer to manage Firefox settings in Firefox, not IE.
http://blog.mattwoodward.com/bypassing-windows-security-checks-in-firefox
Feb 02, 2010
Matthew Woodward said...
Heh--I forget my own blog posts all the time. Getting old sucks.

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