Unable to Download .EXE File

[jthorusen]

Greetings to the Forum:

I am having a difficulty in downloading .EXE files. This problem may not even be related to Pale Moon but I thought I would post it and see if any one else is experiencing the same difficulty.

I am attempting to download a Power Point Viewer from the Microsoft download web site. Whenever I do this, the download fails with the following error message:

Here is something I observe: The message refers to the file name with "PART" (for partial) tacked on to the end of the file name. If the download is interrupted for any reason, it seems that the download software may be requesting the filename as shown (.PART suffix) rather than the original file name (.EXE suffix). Of course, no such file exists on the server. I don't know if this is what is happening, but it seems possible.

I am unable to download the file with Internet Explorer either, but the error is completely different. In the case of IE, the web site switches to a "thank you for downloading" screen in less than a second... no error message, but no file is ever downloaded.

I have pale Moon set to clear the cache on exit.

Here are the software particulars:

The operating system is Windows XP V5.1 Service pack 3.
The browser is Pale Moon V 26.4.1 (Atom/WinXP).
The virus software is Avast V 12.3.2280 (build 12.3.3154.6).
The IE version is: V 8.0.6001.18702.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Jim T.
KB6GM

[jthorusen]

Greetings to the Forum:

A fellow on the Antique Radio Forum pointed out a similar problem and work-around for FireFox. The URL is:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Source_file_could_not_be_read

Apparently, neither of my browsers can cope with interrupts generated by the Avast virus checker as it scans the incoming file. The work-around is to stop Avast completely and have nothing else running on the computer. The file then downloads without difficulty.

The post at the above URL also suggests deleting a "compreg.dat" file before attempting the download. This file appears to be specific to FireFox because I could find no instance of it on my machine. Therefore, it is either deleted on exit or does not exist with Pale Moon.

Regards,
Jim T.
KB6GM

[Moonchild]

It's not necessarily "not being able to deal with", but rather the AV locking the file in the file system the moment it is saved, and as such the saving and renaming of the file to the final name fails. Avast is simply being too aggressive in the way it handles files it wants to scan/verify. It should only lock the "execute" operation, and not the read/write operations.

[Frasier]

What addons/extensions are installed? I just tried to download the Power Point Viewer and received the "thank you for downloading" message too, but no download took place. After allowing some scripts from Microsoft and trying the download again, all went well.

As for Avast, you might try these settings for the Web Shield: