SharePoint, IE8, WebClient, And Credentials

Greg Tate — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:36:46 GMT

So I’ve been struggling with an odd issue here at the office. SharePoint kept prompting me for credentials in IE8 but not IE7. To fix this I simply moved the url http://sharepoint.abccompany.com from trusted sites to intranet sites. Problem Solved!…So I thought

Later we noticed when a user would attempt to open a document in any library the user would again be prompted for credentials. After what seemed like a week of Googleling (couple of hours) I discovered a two part MSFT hotfix to which I think SWEET this is fixed. But sadly the installer package informed me the fix wasn’t applicable to my machine. Seems at this point Microsoft has already included this in their service packs on Vista and Windows7. The sad thing is their service pack couldnt address the second part.

For those who havent clicked over to read the hot fix, part two added a Multi-String Value named AuthForwardServerList to your HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\WebClient\Parameters entry. Within this Key you are to define the servers to which your web client service would forward you credentials to without asking your permission(e.g *.abccompany.com).

Here is the code to get you started on Scripted fix. Just remember you will need to restart the WebClient service

Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002

‘Set Computer Name

strComputer = "."
Set objRegistry = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")

'Set Value
strKeyPath = "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\WebClient\Parameters"
strValueName = "AuthForwardServerList"
arrValue = Array("*.abccompany.com")

objRegistry.SetMultiStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, strValueName, arrValue

As a parting note the HotFix states Windows XP machines aren't affected since they aren't shipped with IE8, but the ones I tested proved otherwise. Nonetheless it doesn't seem to harm the XP machines if you add this registry addition to them. Of course after this I’ve stumbled upon another issue I wasn’t aware of…a difference between user experience in IE8 32Bit and IE8 64Bit…Guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow :-)

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SharePoint, IE8, WebClient, And Credentials