opening a document thru hyperlink

I know that a link like "<a href="SomeWordDoc.doc">" will open the appropriate application (in this case Word), and that depending on the security settings user will be asked whether to open it or save it to disk.

What I want to know is. Is this possible using javascript with something like "onclick=javascript:window.navigate("SomeWordDoc.doc")"? This seem to work in IE but not in Netscape. Is there any alternative to make this in Netscape? (I think it goes down to sending http request using javascript?)

thanks lotz