If you're looking to make IE respond like all the other browsers when it comes to forced downloads, standard Content-type and Content-disposition headers won't do the trick. However, this PHP snippet shows what will. Be sure to modify the last Content-type header to whatever MIME type the file actually is. header("Pragma: public"); // required header("Expires: 0"); header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-ch If you’re looking to make IE respond like all the other browsers when it comes to forced downloads, standard Content-type and Content-disposition headers won’t do the trick. However, this PHP snippet shows what will. Be sure to modify the last Content-type header to whatever MIME type the file actually is. header("Pragma: public"); // required header("Expires: 0"); header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0"); header("Cache-Control: private",false); header('Content-Description: File Transfer'); header('Content-Type: application/force-download'); header("Content-Type: application/download"); header("Content-Type: a-xzip-compressed"); header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=" . $name);