You have already answered your own question! Adjust the mime-type to something other than is configured on the windows client by default and it will force a download.

The key to the open/download issue is the difference in the way that IE deals with mime-types. When your Perl app returns content, IE has no choice but to believe the mime-type header supplied. IE compares the mime-type supplied in the content header and acts according to the settings for that mime-type.

Your application (e.g. /myapp/download.cgi?file1) returns a file (stream of bytes) which just happens to be a Word document:

  1. Setting the Content-type header to application/msword will cause IE to recognise the stream of bytes as a Word document and take the default action. This is probably loading it up in the same window
  2. Setting the mime-type to application/msword-download will cause IE to look for information relating to the application/msword-download mime-type and take action accordingly. Since there is no mime-type information set, IE will take the default action of asking you to save or open the file.
The mime-type / content / action relationship is configured in the registry of the Windows client. The HKCR/.extension keys map the mime-type to a document extension. 
HKCR\.doc
"Content Type"="application/msword"

[download]

In reply to Re: PHP to CGI by inman
in thread PHP to CGI by Anonymous Monk

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