WebDav Folders Issues - IIS 7 and Sharepoint

Long time no post... sorry. Here's a new one I found today about the new IIS 7 WebDav in Windows 2008 and some Issues witch Sharepoint 2007. Good to know:

WebDav Folders - no full functionality

Cheers,

Joelle

WebDAV 7.5 - Update for IIS 7 WebDav (Locking)

Well, I have not expected to see this "that fast" - but it was released this week:

Microsoft IIS 7 WebDAV 7.5 / FTP 7.5 Extension

This should solve the issues with Apple OS X and the other WebDAV Clients like Subversion, Git, etc. which need locks. I will give it a try later this week and see if it fulfills the expectations.

Here's an article on IIS.NET which gives a detailed How-To about the Locking Configuration.

IIS 7 DAV LOCK und Apple OS X

While trying to access a Windows Server 2008 WebDAV Share with Apple OS X I was only able to get read access. After some research it looks like this is the explanation:

I suspect this has to do with the WebDAV server
implementation. When you mount a DAV file system
on the Mac, it is using /sbin/mount_webdav
under-the-hood. The manual page states the
following:

> If connecting to a Class 1 compliant WebDAV
> server, the rdonly option will be set even if it
> was not specified because mount_webdav will
> not allow files to be opened with write access
> on servers which do not support the
> DAV LOCK method

I read somewhere recently that the IIS 7 WebDAV extension does not currently implement locking, which means OS X clients cannot write.

Hello Redmond? True? Why?

There is a discussion on IIS.NET, but currently there is no solution.

[Update] It looks like Microsoft is aware of this issue. There are some very interesting posts in the comments of an old IIS 7 Team blog article - Julian Reschke is again doing a great job.

Inside SharePoint Integrating Office Applications

Very detailed article about the "inside" of Microsoft Sharpoint 2007, especially about the WebDAV Client Redirector architecture. Even better, there is a code download included to get around some of the shortcomings of the current Sharpoint Client communication possibilities:

Source:
Inside SharePoint Integrating Office Applications

EFS in Teams on Network Shares

Hi,

today I have found a great article about productive usage of EFS in teams. I mean everyone who have ever tried to use EFS in a multi-user environment may have seen the same unbelievable shortcomings: SMB EFS works with server based profiles with a bunch of issues as a result of this concept. And even with WebDAV there is still a major issue: multi-user server shares with EFS will not work because you can't inherit the EFS "ACL" and a new file will only be decryptable by the file owner. No comment.

Well, here's the link:
http://geisbauer.blogspot.com/2008/06/sharepoint-dateien-verschlsseln-teil-1.html
http://geisbauer.blogspot.com/2008/06/sharepoint-dateien-verschlsseln-teil-2.html

But sorry... it's in German. Maybe some of you folks can read it?

Joelle

WebDAV Redirector Registry Settings

In Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 there is an updated WebDAV redirector which has several settings available through registry.

Rober McMurray has documented all currently available settings in his blog, it's a great resource and I have to copy it especially for my own memory.

The base registry hive is:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters

The know settings are:

Value & Description	Type	Values	Default
AcceptOfficeAndTahoeServers Specifies whether the WebClient service can connect to web sites that are running SharePoint or Office Web Server.	DWORD	0 = False 1 = True	1
BasicAuthLevel Specifies whether the WebClient service can use basic authentication to talk to a server. Note: Using basic authentication can cause serious security issues as the username/password are transmitted in clear text, therefore the use of basic authentication over WebDAV is disabled by default unless the connection is using SSL. That being said, this registry key can override the default basic authentication behavior, but it is still strongly discouraged.	DWORD	0 = Basic authentication is disabled 1 = Basic authentication is enabled for SSL web sites only 2 = Basic authentication is enabled for SSL and non-SSL web sites	1
FileAttributesLimitInBytes Specifies the maximum size that is allowed by the WebClient service for all properties on a specific collection.	DWORD	Size of attributes in bytes	1,000,000 decimal (1 MB)
FileSizeLimitInBytes Specifies the maximum size in bytes that the WebClient service allows for file transfers.	DWORD	File size in bytes	50,000,000 decimal (50 MB)
InternetServerTimeoutInSec Specifies the connection timeout for the WebClient service uses when communicating with non-local WebDAV servers.	DWORD	Time in seconds	30 decimal
LocalServerTimeoutInSec Specifies the connection timeout for the WebClient service uses when communicating with a local WebDAV server.	DWORD	Time in seconds	15 decimal
SendReceiveTimeoutInSec Specifies the timeout in seconds that WebDAV the WebClient service uses after issuing a request, such as “GET /file.ext” or “PUT /file.ext”.	DWORD	Time in seconds	60 decimal
ServerNotFoundCacheLifeTimeInSec Specifies the period of time that a server is cached as non-WebDAV by the WebClient service. Note: The WebClient service maintains a list of non-WebDAV servers that have been contacted. If the server is found in this list, a fail is returned immediately without attempting to contact the server.	DWORD	Time in seconds	60 decimal
SupportLocking Specifies whether the WebClient service supports locking.	DWORD	0 = False 1 = True	1

Note: After changing any of these settings you will need to restart the WebClient service.

Source: Robert McMurray's Blog

Mounting WebDAV Servers (RFC 4709)

Found this RFC today. Well, it's an October 2006 document, I am sorry if this is old news for you :-).

RFC 4709

It's Julian Rescke (greenbytes) again and he does a good job in not only describing an WebDAV announcement technology already used by SAP and others but also included some Windows client script to make the transparent mounting work in any native Windows environment.

Worth looking into because if you plan an infrastructure where WebDAV is used instead of file servers it is a real need to think about a link notation which does not result in the well known "browser view" of WebDAV shares but instead opens an explorer view of the data. Julian's document describes such a way.

On the other hand at least in Windows Vista it is possible to use a file share URL to connect to WebDAV:

\\server.domain@SSL\DavWWWRoot

I will try to collect some more pros and cons about the different ways to mount a WebDAV share - happy about your comments.

Microsoft White Paper: Understanding and Troubleshooting Sharepoint Explorer View

Well, ever thought about the strange behaviors in working with Sharepoint when connecting with Windows Explorer, WebDAV, Applications File Dialog, etc?

This White Paper explains a lot:

The Explorer View feature that is included with Windows SharePoint Services and is also available in Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server lets users access files stored in the SharePoint database using the familiar Windows Explorer interface. To the end user, this appears to be a very simple and robust feature. In reality, it is the result of a complex series of interactions between many individual components provided by separate Microsoft products.

This white paper is an effort to accomplish three things:

• Provide an overview of the Explorer View architecture.

• Document the causes and resolutions of problems you are likely to encounter when using the Explorer View in a corporate environment.

• Describe basic troubleshooting steps to be performed before engaging Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS).

Everyone working with WebDAV and/or Sharepoint should have a look into this paper - it may solve some of your day by day problems.

Source:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads

Mirosoft WebDAV DLL and Redirector Versions and Issues

A small German based company (greenbytes, one of the owners is included in some of the WebDAV RFCs) has done a terrific job in collecting all kind of informations about the MSDAIPP.DLL (Web Folder Client) and the MRXDAV.SYS (WebDAV Mini-Redirector).

You can find all Windows and Hotfix Versions of these files and links to all available Microsoft KB-Articles and documents related.

Give it a try:

Web Folder Client (MSDAIPP.DLL) Versions and Issues List
http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webfolder-client-list.html

WebDAV Mini-Redirector (MRXDAV.SYS) Versions and Issues List
http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webdav-redirector-list.html

Microsoft WebDAV Hotfix - KB 933771

Last one for today - this one is really ugly: Microsoft Windows Vista crashes when using encryption with WebDAV. Sometimes I wonder about the quality of test procedures at Microsoft - based on several good articles found on microsoft.com WebDAV is the preferred protocol to work work securely against file servers because it is the only protocol offered by Microsoft which encrypts the communication over the network - in addition to the encrypted EFS files.

But it seems no one cared - copy one small EFS-encrypted file to a WebDAV share says goodby to your Explorer.

Details:

In Windows Vista, the Svchost.exe process stops responding when you try to copy encrypted Encrypting File System (EFS) files to a Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) resource. If you use Windows Explorer to do this, Windows Explorer stops responding. You may have to restart the computer.

Note The Svchost.exe process hosts the WebClient service.

When you try to save an encrypted 2007 Microsoft Office document to a WebDAV resource, you may receive an error message that says that the document cannot be saved.

The KB Article can be found here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933771

Microsoft WebDAV Hotfix - KB 931770

Another update - this time it's a hotfix - coming from Microsoft Support. This one addresses the following:

On a Windows Vista-based computer, when you try to copy files from a server on a network, the copy process may stop responding (hang), and you may receive a message that resembles the following:

Calculating Time Remaining
0 minutes remaining

This problem may occur only occasionally.


The detailed KB Article can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/931770

Well, the bad new is that even when the hotfix is installed on my Vista machine the copy or move process fails quite often. Sometimes with an error message (I am still digging into this issue) and sometimes it just freezes.

Microsoft WebDAV Software Update - KB 90703

Microsoft has releases a Software Update for Windows XP and Windows Vista which solves the following issues:

This update fixes various issues that may occur when you use Web folders from the client computer to connect to a server that supports Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV).

This update fixes the following issues:

• A document that is opened from a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 site may be downloaded two times when you click Edit in Microsoft Office program.
• The download progress indicator does not work for some documents on the SharePoint site.
• You cannot rename or copy files that have a display name in a non-Internet Information Services (IIS) Web folder.

Additionally, this update includes security enhancements to Web folders.

The detailed KB Article can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=907306

Well, it looks like Microsoft starts to care about WebDAV... somehow.