Force loading the msi file
I must have a busy day. I cannot figure it out.
I have a page on my website that needs to force the download of the msi file, but I want to leave the html page specified with download instructions.
So far, I have tried the following tag in html (note that I have access to the body of this page)
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; URL=file.msi">
however in firefox this showed the binary as garbled text.
Next, I tried to insert the following php
$file = "file.msi";
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.basename($file));
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Expires: 5');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header('Pragma: public');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
ob_clean();
flush();
readfile($file);
exit;
However, this closed the tab / window and left no installation instructions.
Finally, I tried the following in html:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="application/octet-stream">
<meta http-equiv="content-disposition" content="attachment; filename=file.msi" />
But this does not allow uploading the file. Any pointers are greatly appreciated.
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<meta>
apply to the page in which they are embedded. They will not change how the file is loaded, which is considered a completely separate page.
You should have something like this <a href="downloadmsi.php" target="_new" />download</a>
to load in a different window than the instructions page.
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Assuming Apache, if you want to use a file .htaccess
, you can add the following:
AddType application/octet-stream .msi
According to this source . Then you can just link to the file.
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I found this link which helped me create a PHP file to link to to point the .msi to download. Worked for the first time.
Visible download page, downloads.php, possibly
<a href="/downloads/?version=App.Installer.msi">download now</a>
Sever processing page from href above i.e. example.com/downloads/index.php
$root = realpath($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]);
$file_dl = $_GET['version'];
header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename='.$file_dl);
header('Content-type: application/x-ole-storage');
readfile($root.'/downloads/'.$file_dl);
Also, not sure if it was necessary, but I added to the .htaccess file: AddType application/octet-stream .msi
as suggested by Marc B
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