With the recent release of IE7 (basically pushed out and forced on you, aaarrrgg), those whom used IE6 as a FTP client will notice some changes and issues. Here are the highlights of the changes:

• The URL syntax with embedded username and password (i.e. ftp://usr:[email protected]) and similar syntax is no longer supported.
• In order to "Login As..." there are a few more clicks involved, and a new window must be opened.
• Actually, IE7 itself does not support a non-anonymous login at all... you must open the site in Windows Explorer.

Solutions

1) Continue to open FTP sites using IE7, but if you need "Login As...", do the following: Click on Page in the upper right corner, then click "Open FTP Site in Windows Explorer". When site opens in Windows Explorer, then click File, Login As... Enter your username and password, click Log On button.

2) You can save a few clicks by opening the FTP site directly in Windows Explorer. There are many ways of opening Explorer, like simply opening "My Computer" then type your FTP URL in the address bar. Like ftp://ftp.sitename.com, then if you need to logon as, open File, Logon As... and enter username password, Log On button, as above.

3) Recommended Solution - DON'T USE IE OR EXPLORER.
I have never liked the use of Internet Explorer as an FTP client. As an IT manager, the issues caused by this have created more calls to my help desk than any other issue. IE is just about the worst FTP client I can think of. So, what to use? Well, there are many free FTP clients that do a much better job. The top two that I recommend are FileZilla and CuteFTP Free Trial. If you need premium tech support and are willing to pay for it, I recommend WS_FTP by IpSwitch.

Enjoy your FTP!

Update 01/11/2007

I just discovered what I see as an outright bug in the current release of IE7 version: 7.0.5730.11
If you use the following syntax of an ftp site URL (username without password), IE7 will pop up a FTP Login As dialog. If you go ahead and enter the proper credentials, it will accept them, but do nothing with it. In other words, it simply closes the dialog and leaves you with an anonymous login to the ftp site.

ftp://[email protected]

Please give this a test and let me know if anyone finds different behavior.

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function mysql_pconnect() in /var/www/html/includes/mydb.inc:10 Stack trace: #0 /var/www/html/includes/htfys_author.htm(2): require_once() #1 /var/www/html/htfys/computer/ie7ftpclient.php(55): include('/var/www/html/i...') #2 {main} thrown in /var/www/html/includes/mydb.inc on line 10