Questions about web clients for project

[Guest]

Now we have to propose a new project proposal. We need the following features
(one or more) for web client (usually, IE). I have to figure out which
technologies should we use. It would be appreciated that the experts here
could give me help or suggestion.

1. IE (client) can get information (metadata: media type, location, ...)
about files (e.g., images, ...) in different classes from web server
application. This has been done already in ASP.NET.
2. Based on the metadata, IE can open a socket connecting to the file server
(not web server machine) and retrieve the files and display the files (or
images) on IE.
3. Based on the metadata, IE can start a client side window application (in
the same client side machine) and pass the information in the metadata to the
application which in turn opens a connection to the file server and retrieve
the data from the file server and display the files in the application (of
course, it is better to display in IE, but it seems that it is dificult).
4. How about the security design in this triangle configuration?

Thanks

David