IE Explorer Fails on FTP Download Link

Several customers have recently reported to us that they can no longer access the download links on Artwork's WEB page. This is indirectly due to the fact that we have reconfigured our FTP server from an anonymous server, which expects an user to login as anonymous and which does not require any password, to a server that requires specific user names and passwords.

We were obliged to do this after discovering that many of our software programs had been downloaded, cracked and made available on warez sites throughout the internet. We also noted that our ftp server was serving up thousands of copies of our software even on programs that only had a few hundred users.

Login and Password Now Required

From November 2008 on forward, in order to download anything from our FTP server you will need a login and password. We will provide this to any of our customers and anyone who contacts us requesting a program evaluation (assuming we deem the request a valid one)

We will change the login and password from time to time as needed.

Effect on Download Links

The download links on our WEB page are all still valid - however since you need a login and password you will be prompted for it prior to the download starting.

The Page Cannot Be Displayed

Some customers have reported that instead of getting a prompt for a login/password they get a "The page cannot be displayed" error message such as the one below. We have confirmed this and believe it occurs with Internet Explorer version 6.x because we cannot get the problem with later versions of Internet Explorer or with Mozilla.

Workaround

There are several workarounds:

1. Upgrade to IE Explorer 7 or higher - We don't see this problem with later versions of Microsoft's IE Explorer.

2. Upgrade to Mozilla Browser - We don't see this problem with Mozilla.

3. Enter the ftp server name only - this seems to work with IE Explorer. Of course, you then must manually navigate through to the correct folder and file to download. A short example is shown below:

Example Workaround 3

Suppose you wish to download Artwork's ASM 501W. You go to the download page and click on the ASM 501 download link: asm501.win32.v653.exe

But instead of the file download starting or even getting the login prompt, you just get a The page cannot be displayed error.

First we are going to copy the entire link and paste it into Note pad. We do this by right clicking over the asm501.win32.v653.exe link and selecting Copy Shortcut.

Now we paste the shortcut into Notepad as we will need this information later to guide us to the download.

Now just enter the ftp.artwork.com into IE Explorer's Address field. This should produce the login prompt.

Now that you are past the login step you can navigate to the proper directory and select the file to download. This is where pasting the link into notepad helps you follow the directory structure. You will start in the pub directory by default.

You must then click on pub, click on the get_from_here folder, then click on the asm500w folder and then click on asm501.win32.v653.exe. Your download will start.