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Error message in Internet Explorer when you click a hyperlink that links to a file whose name contains UTF-8-encoded characters: The page cannot be displayed

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Microsoft Knowledge Base Article

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©2005-©2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks

Article ID: 941052 - Last Review: September 28, 2011 - Revision: 3.0

Error message in Internet Explorer when you click a hyperlink that links to a file whose name contains UTF-8-encoded characters: "The page cannot be displayed"

SYMPTOMS

Consider the following scenario. You use Windows Internet Explorer to visit a Web page. Then, you click a hyperlink on the Web page. In this scenario, you receive the following error message:
The page cannot be displayed
Additionally, the Address bar may include some incorrect characters.

This issue occurs if the following conditions are true:
  • The hyperlink is a uniform resource identifier (URI) that links to a file.
  • The file name contains UTF-8-encoded characters.

CAUSE

In the URI, the UTF-8-encoded characters are interpreted as a byte according to the current codepage. The meaning of the UTF-8-encoded characters in non-US-ASCII varies, depending on the locale in which the document is viewed.

WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, do not use percent-encoded octets to represent non-US-ASCII characters. To represent a non-US-ASCII character, you must use that non-US-ASCII character directly in the encoding of the document in which you write the URI.

For more information, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/12/06/file-uris-in-windows.aspx (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/12/06/file-uris-in-windows.aspx)

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

APPLIES TO
  • Windows Internet Explorer 9
  • Windows Internet Explorer 7
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0
Keywords: 
kbexpertiseadvanced kbprb KB941052
       

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