title: html link to client side file
body: <p>I am developing in ASP.net a web application which among other things should list documents available on a remote server. 
  this is for a very restricted number of users for which we can control the end PC.
  What i need is the end user to click on a hyperlink and the file would open directly in words or excel for edition and save direct to remote server.</p>
  
  <p>Files will also be available on a very common cloud file sharing system with the "virtual drive" letter (x:) </p>
  
  <p>google doc does give you a unique url for each file but when one click on the link it opens online not in the local Microsoft Word. these is a plug in for office but document have to be open from word not from the webapp.</p>
  
  <p>So the idea would be to create a windows explorer link to the file to open "file.lnk".
  and set the browser to open lnk extensions with Explorer.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;a href="file:///C:\test.lnk"&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>where test.lnk is an explorer link to the targeted file on the virtual drive.</p>
  
  <p>this sound a bit dodgy, i agree, as it only works on windows.</p>
  
  <p>this actual works ok as long as the htlm file is run on the local machine ( d:\app.htlm) but does not work when the html file is served on a remote web server ( mydomain.com/app.html)</p>
  
  <p>Question:
  why is the link on client side not served from the remote web server?</p>
  
  <p>is there a simple implementation of editing MS office documents opened from the web browser without monster application like sharepoint or Alfresco?</p>