Cannot Open Transferred Files

tld1962 · Jan 4, 2007

A friend made some photos and videos available to me online through something called X-drive. They are all different formats, including avi, jpeg, bmp, gif.

I cannot open any of the files while they are in X-drive.

I can transfer them to my hard drive, but I cannot then open them from there either.

When I look at the "Properties" of any of the files that I have transferred to my hard drive, there is a note that says "This file came from another computer and might be blocked to protect this computer." There is an "Unblock" button next to that. When I click the Unblock button, it eliminates that message. However it does not result in my being able to open the file. I still cannot open any of them.

I have tried opening the photos in PhotoShop, Internet Explorer, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer and I think one or two others.

Has anyone ever come across "This file came from another computer and might be blocked to protect this computer" and figured out a way around it?

Thanks.

TTinCO · Jan 4, 2007

Very odd-can't say that I've ever seen this or heard of it before.

Sorry

Labeeb · Jan 4, 2007

Can't say I've ever heard of that either. I'll have to check around to see if I can find anything.

tld1962 · Jan 4, 2007

Thanks. Appreciate anything you can come up with.

I turned off any firewall. I recently switched to Internet Explorer 7, and in case that was the problem I tried to access them with Firefox, but with the identical result.

It seems to be some sort of firewall or defense mechanism embedded in Windows itself. I'm running Windows XP.

I can’t understand why "Unblock" has zero effect. What else can "unblock" mean except that you want to remove the block and be able to open the file?

TTinCO · Jan 4, 2007

Try disabling the firewall in XP (stop the service "Windows Firewall\Internet connection sharing).

If it's that big of an issue, I'd be tempted to uninstall IE7 just to see if that was the problem-which wouldn't surprise me if it was.

tld1962 · Jan 4, 2007

I put a check mark in the "File and Printer Sharing" as an exception to the Windows firewall and then started from scratch from the X-drive site. No luck.

Then I just turned off the Windows firewall entirely and tried again. No luck.

I did try a different browser in case it was something in Internet Explorer that was causing the problem.

TTinCO · Jan 4, 2007

tld1962 said:
I can’t understand why "Unblock" has zero effect. What else can "unblock" mean except that you want to remove the block and be able to open the file?

Don't assume that anything from Micro$oft actually does what it's supposed to.

You're on the right track & seem to have a pretty good grasp of what to do. It wouldn't surprise me if installing IE7 (intentionally?) screws up other browsers.

tld1962 · Jan 4, 2007

If I can’t eventually come up with some way around this, what might be the best alternative method of transferring photo and video files?

I don’t think my friend is all that motivated to do anything more; he feels like he’s done his part by making the files available through X-Drive. So the easier the better.

I know he mentioned some of the files are a lot larger than he can send with whatever e-mail program he’s using.

Or is it irrelevant what method is used, because if my computer is blocking these as being from a "foreign" computer then it will similarly block files obtained other ways?