Problem: WebBlock download impossible on standard Windows

[Thona]

Yeah, sounds harsh. Is it, sadly.

Per standard, the WebBlok files end in ".7zip". Per standard install (and please understand that some of us do not know hosting business, and some hosts are ignorant regarding that too, and some do not run their own servers) IIS does NOT serve any content which has a file extension for which it does not have a mime-type. Yes, ridiculous. But that is what it is.

Naturally a normal Windows install has no mimetype registered for 7zip. Which means that any request for that file will simply blow. Kaboom.

That means that people running a hosting on windows will get problems with WebBlocks, and will most likely not know what that is about. Now, IF they know and IF the provider supports adding mimetypes, then that is not an issue. Otherwise.... some warning could be nice.

In general, the .7zip-extension is not nice. It, on one side, does not work with IIS out of the box, and on the other side it breaks 8.3 naming conventions.

[Gizm0]

Hello Thona,

In my opinion, there is no need to change the extension to a mime-type support one.If the IIS configuration is crappy (which means it's doesn't even support .rar files) then you should fix the IIS on the specific server, not change the whole product to support a crappy configuration.
As for the 8.3 naming conventions, you can simply set the name of the file on the Web Media Blocks (even the extension).

[Thona]

If the IIS configuration is crappy (which means it's doesn't even support .rar files) then you should fix the IIS on the specific server, not change the whole product to support a crappy configuration.

Let me clarify that: you would tell a customer that uses a third party hosted website that he should either get lost or replace his web host?

That is not customer focused, sorry. That IS a IIS problem, but the absolute majority of people do not run their own servers, and there are still a lot of companies out there with crap control panels.

As for the 8.3 naming conventions, you can simply set the name of the file on the Web Media Blocks (even the extension).

That is what I do, but I think the default should be fail-safe.

[Gizm0]

You misunderstood me..
If someone has a crappy web hoster, means that webhost service doesn't even worth to be used..
He/she can simply ask, to register the 7zip extension on the IIS from the Server administrator and the problem is solved.

As for the naming convention, yes you might be right it should be done this way be default, but hey.. even microsoft dropped support on Win98..

[MichaelNesmith]

This makes a good argument, for both sides involved. Adding MIME types to IIS is a trivial thing - on the other hand, if the hosting is fairly locked down, the generated files can always be renamed and uploaded differently - the URL field in the Web Media Block command is fully customizable, in fact its not even limited to http values - ftp, network paths, etc. work fine there.

There were some early arguments about using a different file extension - but for instance, if we named these extensions zip, this would be misleading as far as the actual content and compression technology used (InstallShield used to do this with their proprietory CAB files, which were unrelated to the real CAB format, in the past). We value transparency a lot, so this is why we have retained the 7zip extension.