Hello,

A webserver I'm writing is accessed both by "browser clients" for
interactive use and by "program clients" that request XML formatted
data. To streamline error handling, the server always returns errors
in XML format, linked to an XSLT stylesheet for browser display. This
way both browsers and programs can be served error messages the same
way.

One of these error content is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="http://notepeter/pow/
protecs.dll/doc?ref=Exception.xsl&fld=tpl"?>
<powxml
  generator="Protecs On The Web"
  fileversion="4.0"
  powurl="http://notepeter/pow/protecs.dll">
  <exception
    message="Invalid use of keyword.&#xA;Token:
%&quot;&#xA;ORDER&#xA;Line Number: 3Aanvullende informatie over BDE
fout: "
    dbierr="$2A12 (Invalid use of keyword.)"
    bdetable="N.V.T."
    processid="0x000005B0 (Decimaal: 1456)"/>
</powxml>

Firefox handles this perfectly, the linked stylesheet is used to
render the data in XHTML format. However, Internet Explorer 6.0 simply
displays the raw XML tree. Further investigation on the server side
shows that it doesn't even request the stylesheet. However if I
request the stylesheet by entering its URL (http://notepeter/pow/
protecs.dll/doc?ref=Exception.xsl&fld=tpl) on the address bar, it
shows up. So the URL is accessible. The question is: why doesn't IE
even request the stylesheet?