[X Newbies] Where do downloads go?

[Jon Warms]

On Saturday, August 9, 2003, at 08:28 AM, Mac OS X Newbies wrote:

> but one I
> do not recognise called
>
> DirectoryService.server.log.2
>
> a 4kb document for which there doesn't appear to be an application that
> can open it.

When a browser finds that the name of a file it is downloading already 
exists in the download location, the browser adds a suffix dot-number 
to the file name, for example ".2"
In your case, IE apparently downloaded DirectoryService.server.log into 
its download folder a third [?] time, and added the suffix to the 
filename so it wouldn't overwrite the previous download.

OS X uses the file's extension as a guide to determine which 
application to use to open the file. But it doesn't know how to handle 
".2" files.

Most log files are text files, so try using TextEdit to read the file. 
Preview will also read a large variety of file types.

As far as the missing download is concerned, you have to deal with this:

1) All IE download attempts are listed in the Download Manager window, 
along with the status of the download.
2) If you can't find your file in that list, either you got the 
filename wrong, or the download never started, or you used a different 
browser (perhaps IE 5.1 from Classic).
3) Note that the download list can be mucked around with. Normally the 
list is in chrono order, but you can sort it into something meaningless 
(by clicking on a column heading). Also, it's possible to delete 
entries from the list, but presumably you'd know you had done that.

I can't think of any other alternatives, so I would rethink each of 
these.

Jon