SysInfo:
I'm on a SONY VAIO PCG-F350 laptop from 2000 running Windows 98 SE v. 4.10.2222 A / Pentium II / 192MB Ram / 2.5 MB video RAM on the chip / 144MB scratchfile...

This old machine has a wierd bug: it will not download files through IE 6* in the usual way on some sites -- instead of getting the download dialog box, allowing me to name and place the file in a folder as you normally would, it simply dumps ASCII code into the browser window and ultimately the default TEMP directory. This results in a saved HTML file and no clever tweaking will allow it to become an EXE. This is only a problem with certain websites, however, others work normally -- it seems to depend on the shortcut structure on the site itself. If I hover on the DOWNLOAD hypertext and I see "shortcut to..." in the bottom left side of the IE status bar, I usually have a problem (but not always -- but mostly!). If the hover shows an actual URL, however, the file usually comes through normally and I get my dialog box. I thought it might be a Javascript problem, so I downloaded the latest JAVA runtime stuff, but that didn't help.

I don't recall this being a problem when I used to use this machine on a daily basis back in 2000 (I brought it out again recently when my regular laptop's hard drive crashed), so I believe there's a solution, I just can't seem to figure it out. I've run through all the Advanced Internet Options and don't see anything telling there, though I may have mised something.

I've upgraded and downgraded and re-upgraded to *version 6.0.2800.1106CO of IE, but the probem persists.

TIA for any assistance...


A-1