Are you sure you were doing it without a drive name? The following syntax does work, so perhaps try specifying the drive?

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/username/Desktop/file.txt

I am not attempting to open a specific file as in your example "file.txt". I am attempting to open the folder which would give me a list of all of the files contained in the folder. Pasting the folder link directly into the address bar works but clicking on a link with the same structure doesn't work.

hm, that is fascinating. Hold on, let me shut off Apache and see if that makes a difference.

Ok, so you have a link to a directory and you want to view the directory contents in firefox using the windows file path, and you are not running a web server application like Apache, correct? (you would know if you were.)

Now, you can view it fine when you type it in, but when you click a link to it, it doesn't work?

Is that link in an html page? A word document?

Are you getting a specific error?

I just went in and made a really basic HTML page and linked to a local directory and accessed it through it's windows file path using Firefox 5 and I'm not having any trouble viewing the file listing of the directory when clicking on the link to it; so for what it's worth, it is possible in firefox 5.

I was able to get it to work two ways. One, using the full file path including the drive.

So, for a full path:

• a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/username/Desktop/test"

and for a local path:

• a href="test"
• or
• a href="./test"

To get a relative link to work, I had to drop any starting / or file:/// (which in this case is like http:// so you wouldn't use that for a relative link anyways; it's invalid syntax from a conceptual level)

Does that help any?

For example if I type: file:///C:/ into the address bar, I get a folder-like tab that shows the contents of the C drive.

I then code that same syntax into a wiki web page as a link. It appears as a link in my wiki page and the preview at the bottom of the page appears (when hovering over it with the mouse). But when you click on the link nothing happens.

In firefox 3.6 I used slightly different syntax in the link (file://///C:/) and this worked. It does not work in 5.0.

Right. I get the same thing when I type in file:///C:/

For what it's worth, I checked it in my copy of 3.6 and file://///C:/ won't work for me there, though it's possible you had an older sub-version. (file:///C:/ does work though). The extra slashes are an older format that is not considered proper, but showed up in some legacy software, apparently? It's possible Firefox has discontinued support of it; I don't know.

I don't know how advanced your wiki system is, or how it processes links, and I'm afraid that you are going beyond what I'm able to really help with. I don't use the windows file system to access links... If I were going to run a wiki or something of the sort from my local machine, I'd instal a webserver application (like Apache or IIS) and then link from localhost using the http protocol instead.

Unless you wrote the wiki system and/or it was specifically designed to work with local windows file structure links, it likely isn't optimized to work with that type of link, and there is a chance that it might be trying to do some sort of processing on the link that is confusing the system. I don't work with the file URI scheme, and I really don't know how to fix it if your script is half-understanding and half not. I'm sorry :(

See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Links_to_local_pages_do_not_work

cor-el: Following the link you supplied under the section labeled "UNC Paths". This method no longer works when put in a hyperlink.

I do not have network drives, so I can't test it.

Can you browse to that drive via File > Open File or drag and drop a file in the Firefox window?
That is usually the easiest way to get the correct path visible in the location bar.

Unfortunately changes are made to the CAPS implementation, so capability.policy prefs may no longer work.

Even local drive links won't work (/////C:/)

Yes I can open the file by clicking file > open

I can also open the file by putting the link directly in the address bar. It just and issue with getting a hyperlink to translate to the address bar of firefox.