Internet Explorer attempts to display EXE and ZIP files as though they were HTML files, instead of popping the download/save as window. I can right click on a target and select "Save Target AS"... that works properly. I've tried the EXEfix80 program and I've tried the regedit hack of removing EXE from the ../internet explorer/plugins/extensions regkey. Neither of these resolved the problem. Any help would be appreaciated.

I wonder if that's your anti-virus programmimg intercepting them and causing the problem?

Try Start > Settings > Folder Options > File Types and look and see if .exe is associated with Internet Explorer. If it is, delete the association and restart the computer. If it's not associated with IE, try TweakUI and 'repair associations'. If not, if you've got IE 5.5 or up, try the repair IE tool in System Information > Tools.

Tested by disabling the Nortons' AV, No Different... checked the .exe associations and it appears to be proper. The only place that extension is listed is under APPLICAION with a content type of "application/x-msdownload" and opens with [EXECUTABLE]. I looked through every Registered file type and that was the only place it was listed. I compared it with another Win98 machine that is functioning correctly and it appears that the File Types are proper. Any Other Suggestions before I rip the guts out and start over. :)

If you are running IE6, you could 'try' a 'Repair'. Go to Add Remove programs, select IE, Click on Add/Remove and select the 'Repair' option. If you're not in a hurry, you might consider posting again. I've never heard of that problem, but maybe someone has.

Forgot to mention that I started trying to resolve this problem by doing the REPAIR option in the IE install. The next thing I did was to install SP1 for IE6. Neither of these things made any improvement to the problem.