Question about previewing HTML files

[GerryB]

I may be about to ask a silly question; it won't be the first time, either.

When Windows Explorer's preview pane is open, it always blocks the images from locally-stored HTML pages, claiming security concerns. Yet the pages are neither being viewed online, nor were they downloaded. They were, in fact, created by me, and so were the images. XYplorer, on the other hand, shows the images, and I'm really pleased about that, but how does it manage to get around those silly restrictions imposed by Windows? I suspect that they are caused by a component of Internet Explorer; if so, does XYplorer have its own built-in HTML rendering engine?

[Enternal]

I'm just going to guess how it works so correct me if I'm wrong everyone else.

Windows Explorer, like XYplorer, is basically just a file manager. It's just in fact that Windows Explorer is the default file manager on Windows. In this case, Windows Explorer simply does some quick and sometimes stupid checks on files to check whether it's "dangerous" or not. If it did mark the file as "dangerous", it will require you to click the "Unblock" button before it will finally calls up to Internet Explorer to preview the file. In XYplorer's case, it doesn't care whether the file is "dangerous" or not and does not do any check. Therefore it simply calls up Internet Explorer to preview the file.

Basically Windows Explorer is an uptight gatekeeper to the blue-skinned dude in the back who likes to show off how cool he is even if he isn't while XYplorer is a gatekeeper who does not give a darn and if you want to see the blue-skinned dude in the back, it's all on you whether you have to bleach your eyeballs or not afterwards.

Or... something like that.

[GerryB]

Thanks, Enternal, I guess that pretty much explains it.

MS got into trouble a long time ago for making IE part of the OS and not allowing users to opt out of it. Now it's still more or less part of Windows, and even though it can be disabled, it can't be uninstalled. Many apps still rely on components of IE even after user access to it has been disabled and IE itself turned off in the control panel under Programs and Features. I've done all that since I use a different browser, but still find the occasional entry in Temporary Internet Files.

Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer seem to have a lot of similarities in their user interfaces, too, even to the extent that pressing F11 in Windows Explorer invokes fullscreen view and hides the toolbars until the mouse hovers over the top of the screen, and Internet Explorer recognizes backslashes in its URL bar. In fact, in the URL bar it's not even necessary to prefix the path name of a local HTML file with file:// .