Problems hyperlinking to certain file types

[a_south]

Hello. I am developing an intranet website and am having problems with hyperlinks to a couple "obscure" file types: MXD (ESRI ArcGIS Map Document) and PMF (ESRI Published Map). The HTML is being generated through Cold Fusion and so the <a href> tags are being built based on file locations stored in a database. The files may reside on the web server (using a relative path) or on a different machine (using ip address + path) accessible by the web server and all users. The images and PDF file hyperlinks are working perfectly. But these other two are returning undesirable results. If the file is on the server, the link shows as http:// and the PMF returns the error "page cannot be found" and does not prompt the user to open or save. Running this on my local machine as a test server, the PMF displaya as hex code in the browser window. If the file is on a machine other than the web server, the links shows as file:// and the browser looks like it's trying to open the file but then nothing happens. The ESRI website has a downloadable MXD and it works just fine. Looking at the HTML, they are running nothing more than a simple <a href> the same as mine.

So that makes me wonder... Is there somewhere on the server to "register" file types so these files are available to open/save? I tried adding these two extensions as MIME types in IIS, but this did nothing to my results. I would greatly appreciate any advice!!! Thanks.