This is a very annoying problem that completely ruins the user experience of Office 2007 and Sharepoint. The worst part of the problem is that it only occurs on Vista and works perfectly on Windows XP. Makes me sometimes wonder why I bothered to upgrade in the first place, but it is too late now.
Before I start explaining how to work around this particular issue, let me explain the problem in more detail to ensure that you are reading the right solution for the right problem. Below is a description of the environment and the software used on all machines.
- MOSS 2007 has been deployed on Windows Server 2003 R2
- Database is SQL 2005 with SP 2
- MOSS 2007 SP1 and WSS 3.0 SP1 has been installed.
- Infrastructure updates for MOSS and WSS have been installed.
- Office 2007 with SP1 has been installed on the client PC's
- All clients are running Vista SP1
- Sharepoint is deployed as and Extranet using a FQDN to access it. For example: http://portal.acme.co.za.
Below is a list of steps that you can follow to determine if your Sharepoint environment is experiencing this particular problem.
- Create a document library on a Sharepoint site using Word 2007 as the default template.
- Select the "New" option from the toolbar of the document library.
- "Word 2007" launches on the local PC and prompts for a login.
- After supplying the correct credentials you are prompted another 2 or 4 times to authenticate.
- When saving the document from "Word 2007" back to Sharepoint, a similar thing occurs.
Referenced Articles:
I then decided to start doing some serious research on how to fix this particular problem and became quite depressed when I compared my results. It seems that at the moment there is not outright fix and many people have very different opinions on how to work around this problem. Below is some of the results that I have found that explains why it happens as well as some suggestions on how to work around the issues.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;941853
http://www.chicagotech.net/netforums/viewtopic.php?t=3570
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-networking-sharing/142618-problem-vista-office-2007-sharepoint-2007-a.html
Understanding Why it Happens
When you use Internet Explorer to access the WebDAV site, Internet Explorer uses Windows HTTP Services (WinHTTP). WinHTTP sends user credentials only in response to requests that occur on a local intranet site during an authenticated logon process. However, WinHTTP does not check the security zone settings in Internet Explorer to determine whether a Web site is a local intranet site. Instead, WinHTTP depends on the proxy settings in Internet Explorer to determine whether a Web site is a local intranet site.
If the Automatically detect settings option is not enabled, any auto-configuration script that is defined will not be processed. WinHTTP will not identify the WebDAV site as a local intranet site. Therefore, WinHTTP will send out a request without user credentials, and you will be prompted to type user credentials.
So as you can see, this problem only seem to appear on an Extranet site and not on an Intranet site. Unfortunately many of my customers run geophysical solutions all over the country with no proxy's in between.
Different options on Fixing this problem!
Based on the various Blog's and articles that I have read on the Internet the list below describes the various options to try:
- Ensure that the Automatically detect settings option is enabled on IE and use a proxy.
- Run Office 2007 in "XP SP2 Compatibility mode" on Vista for all clients.
- Stop the "WebClient" service on Windows Vista.
I tried the various options and none of them gave me a proper solution that I was happy with. They also seemed to be fairly inconsistent. I therefore attempted my own solution using a combination of these suggestions.
My attempt at Fixing this
In an attempt to fix this particular problem I followed the reasoning below:
- If it works on XP and not Vista then something was removed! It seems to be WebDAV.
- How does Vista work with web folders if not WebDAV? There seems to be a client side service on Vista.
- Conclusion. Stop the service and install WebDAV on Vista.
Therefore following the above mentioned reasoning, below is the steps that I followed to fix this.
Step 1:
Stop the service on the Vista Clients by following the steps below:
- Open "Control Panel" --> "Administrative Tools" --> "Services"
- Select the properties of the "WebClient" service.
- Set the startup sequence to "Disable" and stop the service.
Step 2:
Install the "Web Folder" component on the Vista client machines using the steps below:
- Download and install the software from this location: Software Update for Web Folders (KB907306)
- Reboot the client PC.
Step 3:
Configure "Internet Explorer" to see the Sharepoint site as trusted.
Change the "Trusted Site" settings to "Automatically logon with Current username and Password"
Conclusion
After I made these changes, all the authentication problems went away and people could work normally as if they were working on a local "Intranet". Unfortunately the solution is not as elegant as I would like, but until "Microsoft" fixes this problem with a future service pack, this is what I will have to do.
I also have no idea what the impact will be on stopping this particular service on Vista, but as yet everything seems to be working fine and I will keep you posted if I find any issues.
If you do decide to try this and come across any issues, please let me know by posting a comment on this blog. I hope this helps some of you out there.
Downloads
Software Update for Web Folders (KB907306)
Related Blogs:
Workaround: Vista client fails to connect to Sharepoint using "Windows Explorer"
Using SyncToy to synchronize offline Sharepoint documents on Vista
Comparing MS Office versions with Sharepoint