We have a solution that turns an Excel file from an ActiveReport-based report. In general, this works perfectly, however in some circumstances, for some incredibly bizarre reason, the downloading of the Excel file doesn't begin, and the Excel file instead opens in a web browser window without prompting the user to choose whether to open or save the created Excel file.
On a virtual machine powered by Windows Server 2019, our application is now executing. However, everything works well if I log in to the web server on that virtual machine from a different computer, launch the same program, and export the same report into an Excel file. I can easily access the Excel document in Excel or an Excel viewer when the web browser asks if I want to save or open it.
Another oddity is that not all servers hosting this application experience this issue. Additionally, it appears that similar issues arise if the server only has the Microsoft Office Excel viewer installed. This isn't always the case, though. It appears there are no issues if Excel's full version is installed.
We have tried everything that we have found. We have set the browser flags ( https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/troubleshoot/browsers/how-to-set-ie-to-open-office-documents-in-office-program and https://www.thewindowsclub.com/make-internet-explorer-open-linked-office-documents-in-the-appropriate-office-program ) and went through dozens of web pages and reinstalled Excel Viewer.
Still, it seems that this problem is not related to browser flags at all, since this works fine in other servers even the browser flag values are not set in registry keys. So, to me, the problem seems to be in the web browser settings on the server. I just cannot imagine where. The web browser installed on the server is IE 11.
Any help is highly appreciated.
