Subject: WindowsXP and double login challenges

From: Frank Lowney <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 09:08:26 -0400

We are currently working with three WebDAV-enabled servers as follows:

WebSTAR V v.5.3.2 on MacOS X 10.3.4

Apache on MacOS X Server 10.3.4

BEA Weblogic (supporting WebCT Vista) on Solaris.

Using WindowsXP & 'My Network Places,' we and our various clients and other constituencies are consistently seeing a "double login challenge" in all three cases. We don't see this issue on Win2K Pro or MacOS X.

First, can anyone confirm that this is a "Microsoft not following standards again" issue?

Second, can anyone suggest a work around that will unburden WinXP WebDAV users from the necessity of meeting this challenge twice?

Thanks for any light shed on this issue.
-- 
=====================================================================
Dr. Frank Lowney  [email-masked] 
    Director, Electronic Instructional Services, a unit of the
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    Professional Pages: http://www.gcsu.edu/oiit/eis/
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Voice: (478) 445-5260
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We don't make instruction effective, we make effective instruction more accessible.

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From: Frank Lowney <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 11:07:59 -0400

It's great to see that the WebDAV protocol is relentlessly advancing but, as someone who is trying to get end users to embrace it over older, more established methods, I have to wonder whether the basic aspects of the protocol work well enough to assure a level of acceptance sufficient to sustain the momentum.

Take, for example, the query I posted here a week or so ago (quoted below).  While it's difficult to definitively interpret a non-response, they tend to be interpreted as: yes, that's a problem but there is no solution or workaround.

So, if that is the case with Win2K / WinXP Network Places access to a wide range of WebDAV-enabled servers where end users first and continuing experience with WebDAV is a double login challenge, we should not be surprised to learn that these end users are reluctant to consider change.

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2004 18:13:41 +0200

>>Thanks for any light shed on this issue.

Wow :-)

Keep in mind that your first mail didn't reach the mailing list until 
Tuesday: 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2004JulSep/0007.html>.

Anyway. Yes, this sounds like a bug in Windows XP's WebDAV 
"Mini-Redirector". This client is broken in so many ways that I can't 
even connect to my own server, so I never had the opportunity to look 
into what else may be broken in it. And yes, I reported these issues to 
Microsoft (answer: will not be fixed before Longhorn).

To actually find out what's wrong, you may want to obtain an HTTP trace. 
We can study these traces either here or over on dav-dev (the 
development list for Apache/moddav).

Hope this helps,

Julian

-- 
<green/>bytes GmbH -- http://www.greenbytes.de -- tel:+492512807760

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From: "Eric Sedlar" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 15:42:39 -0700

This is basically a Microsoft problem not a WebDAV problem, which is why you
haven't gotten a response from a standards group.  Authentication isn't
actually addressed in WebDAV either, but uses the HTTP stuff.

The workaround I know of is that some vendors are including their
authentication information in a cookie, which takes advantage of the fact
that some of the Microsoft clients share the authentication information in
the local cookie cache, whereas the HTTP authentication information is not.

--Eric

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Frank Lowney" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 8:07 AM
Subject: Re: WindowsXP and double login challenges

>
> It's great to see that the WebDAV protocol is relentlessly advancing but,
as someone who is trying to get end users to embrace it over older, more
established methods, I have to wonder whether the basic aspects of the
protocol work well enough to assure a level of acceptance sufficient to
sustain the momentum.
>
> Take, for example, the query I posted here a week or so ago (quoted
below).  While it's difficult to definitively interpret a non-response, they
tend to be interpreted as: yes, that's a problem but there is no solution or
workaround.
>
> So, if that is the case with Win2K / WinXP Network Places access to a wide
range of WebDAV-enabled servers where end users first and continuing
experience with WebDAV is a double login challenge, we should not be
surprised to learn that these end users are reluctant to consider change.
> >Using WindowsXP & 'My Network Places,' we and our various clients and
other constituencies are consistently seeing a "double login challenge" in
all three cases. We don't see this issue on Win2K Pro or MacOS X.
> >Second, can anyone suggest a work around that will unburden WinXP WebDAV
users from the necessity of meeting this challenge twice?
> NOTICE: Please be advised that I am hearing impaired and communicate most
effectively via e-mail.  Follow-up summaries of telephone conversations by
e-mail are most appreciated.

---

From: Geoffrey M Clemm <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 01:11:24 +0200

Just FYI, I did run across a workaround to one of the bugs in the
WindowsXP WebDAV implementation.

In particular, if I try to create a web folder by double clicking
on "Add a network place" in the "My Network Places" folder,
the wizard fails when it gets to the authentication step,
where the symptoms are that it replaces your login name "foo"
with "www.whatever.org\foo" where www.whatever.org is the site
of the webdav location you were trying to link to.

But if you fire up Word, and then do a "File: Open" command, and
select "My Network Places" and then double click on the
"Add a network place" entry in that folder, it fires up a
slightly different wizard, which does not have the bug.

Now how long will it take before Word is "fixed" to activate
the buggy wizard instead?  (:-).

Cheers,
Geoff

Eric wrote on 07/09/2004 12:42:39 AM:

> > We don't make instruction effective, we make effective instruction 
more
> accessible.