Save file locally from asp.net without "save as.."? Is ActiveX the only solution?

I'm in the process of building a web application in ASP.NET MVC C# (including ajax/jquery) and have to save a file locally to the client's hard drive.

I have another application that polls a directory for new files, so it's essential the files from the website ends up at that location so therefore showing a "save as.." won't work.

What alternatives do I have? (Sadly I can't rewrite that external application to work in any other way.) Should I write the w开发者_Python百科eb application in silverlight instead? Should I use an ActiveX object? ActiveX feels so 1995 though.. Are there any other variants nowadays?

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I'll vote for Silverlight solution.

But instead of developing your site entirely with Silverlight, just write a small and hidden Silverlight component that would receive a remote file location and stores it in user's local file system.

Check this other answer in Stackoverflow:

• Does Silverlight 3 have access to local file system, Open Excel, and print reports?

And watch this movie:

• http://www.silverlight.net/learn/videos/all/local-file-access/

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This would be a security feature in the browser. It is not acceptable to give a website access to a local folder without some sort of dialog. ActiveX may work, because it is much less secure.

Can you not find a different approach?

In the past I have made a local application in C# that simply uses HTTP requests to download files in a client-server model.