How to start automatic download of a file in Internet Explorer?
html, internet-explorer, javascript, meta-tags
Solution
SourceForge uses an `<iframe>` element with the `src=""` attribute pointing to the file to download.
<iframe width="1" height="1" frameborder="0" src="[File location]"></iframe>
(Side effect: no redirect, no JavaScript, original URL remains unchanged.)
Problem
How do I initialize an automatic download of a file in Internet Explorer? For example, in the download page, I want the download link to appear and a message: "If you download doesn't start automatically .... etc". The download should begin shortly after the page loads. In Firefox this is easy, you just need to include a meta tag in the header, `<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="n;url">` where n is the number of seconds and `url` is the download URL. This does not work in Internet Explorer. How do I make this work in Internet Explorer browsers?