Member Avatar for bugboy

Hi. We use IIS 5.1 on Windows XP pro to serve a simple website to our office. We need to secure it so that only our team has access. Have tried unchecking "Allow Anonymous Access" in IIS, but this causes windows vista machines to require a login with a username and password dialog even though the person is logged into windows with an account that is present on the server. Checking "remember password" doesn't work... the next time accessing the page requires a username and password to be entered again.

All of our XP machines pass the login name and password automatically as long as the account they are logged in to windows with with exists on the server. Anyone know how to get Vista to do this too?

Thanks for any help!

  • 2 Contributors
  • 3 Replies
  • 125 Views
  • 3 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by jbennet

Dani AI

Generated

If Vista clients keep prompting for credentials while XP clients do not, the cause is almost always client-side authentication settings and how Internet Explorer classifies the site — not a mysterious “default” username or password. is right to flag edition limits: Home editions cannot participate in a Windows domain, so you will not get domain single-sign-on across the network unless you switch to a domain-joined setup.

Checklist to resolve it on the Vista clients:

  • Make the site part of the Local intranet zone in Internet Options so IE will attempt integrated authentication automatically. Sites addressed by IP or by FQDN are often treated as Internet zone and will not send credentials.
  • Ensure Integrated Windows Authentication is enabled in IE (Advanced settings) and that the security zone’s User Authentication option is set to automatically logon with current user name and password.
  • If you need persistent credentials, use the Windows Credential Manager (store the site’s credentials under Windows credentials) rather than relying on the browser’s per-session dialog.

Server-side and alternate options:

  • Confirm the site is configured to accept Windows/NTLM authentication on the IIS box (so clients can use integrated auth). If integrated auth is not feasible, consider Basic authentication over HTTPS and save credentials in the client credential store.
  • For true seamless logon for many users, run a proper Active Directory domain instead of relying on matching local accounts across machines.

Security note: IIS 5.1/Windows XP are end-of-life and expose the network to risk. If this service must stay online, isolate it on an internal VLAN and consider upgrading the OS/IIS to a supported platform.

Recommended Answers

All 3 Replies

Member Avatar for jbennet

vista business?

Member Avatar for bugboy

home premium...

Member Avatar for jbennet

home premium is like xp home. it has very limited networking features.

In particular it does not have the ablity to properley join a domain or to properley use active directory

thats probably why it doesnt work wirth your site

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.