You must be saving the downloaded file by providing a name...
Check to see whether the extension is XLS when you are not able to open...
if NOT then that is your problem... make sure that extension is XLS while
saving.

If it is something else then you can associate that extension with Excel by
clicking on 'Alwasy use this to open' while choosing Excel to open the file.

"janee" wrote:

When I download Excel reports from an SQL Server internet application (I work
for state government), sometimes the report downloads as an Excel file and
sometimes it says that it is an "unknown format" - I then have to choose from
a list of programs to open it. I choose Excel and it opens file fine.

Is there something wrong with the file format on the SQL program? The
programmers are telling me it is a problem on my end, but my computer
recognizes Excel files - why can I download some Excel files with no problem
and others have unknown format?

I need to show the programmers something. Thanks for any help.