How to download multiple files in one shot in IE

Question

I want to download multiple files on click of a button in jsp.
I am using the following code in the js to call one servlet twice.

var iframe = document.createElement("iframe");
iframe.width = iframe.height = iframe.frameBorder = 0;
iframe.scrolling = "no";
iframe.src = "/xyz.jsp?prodId=p10245";
document.getElementById("iframe_holder").appendChild(iframe);

var iframe2 = document.createElement("iframe");
iframe2.width = iframe2.height = iframe2.frameBorder = 0;
iframe2.scrolling = "no";
iframe2.src = "/xyz.jsp?prodId=p10243";
document.getElementById("iframe_holder").appendChild(iframe2);

In xyz.jsp i am calling the servlet which downloads the file from a path and send it on the browser.
Issue is that it is working safari,firefox but not in IE.
We cannot download multiple files with IE?

Answer 1

By design, non-user-initiated file downloads are blocked in IE. That inherently means that it should not be possible to download more than one file as the result of a single user-click.

Answer 2

I've used the following code to download multiple files in IE and Chrome

function downloadFile(url)
{
    var iframe = document.createElement("iframe");
    iframe.src = url;
    iframe.style.display = "none";
    document.body.appendChild(iframe);
}

function downloadFiles(urls)
{
    downloadFile(urls[0]);
    if (urls.length > 1)
        window.setTimeout(function () { downloadFiles(urls.slice(1)) }, 1000);
}

You pass an array of URLs to the downloadFiles() function, which will call downloadFile() for each with a short delay between. The delay seems to be the key to getting it to work!