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Browse All TopicsWe have Outlook Web Access for our employees to access. However, if an employee accesses an email with a Microsoft Word attachment, it asks them to supply a network username and password to access the word document in every operating system environment except Windows XP with Internet Explorer version 6. I've tried it in Windows 98 with Internet Explorer version 6 and Windows 2000 with Internet Explorer Version 6. Can anyone give me insight as to why Internet Explorer is asking for network credentials in these older operating systems? Perhaps, there is a setting somewhere that would prevent this and allow them to access the word document without this prompt?
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by: yujaPosted on 2006-02-01 at 21:20:32ID: 15850591
i would assume, this is due to Group Policies setup up on the OWA server, specifically, what authentication scheme the client can use. Win98 has LM by default, Windows 2000 - NTLM (if I am correct), and Windows XP SP2 - NTLM v2. Internet Explorer has the built-in support for integrated authentication, but it all comes down to what authentication scheme the client tries to use.
On your OWA server, if you go into Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policies (or Group Policy for your OWA server), and go under Local Policies -> Security Options, see the value "Network Security: Lan Manager Authentication Level" (this is for Windows 2003, for Windows 2000 it is named something similar). If it is set to "Send NTLMv2 response only/refuse LM" - that's what might be causing this behavior.
HOWEVER, having said this, i'd still stick with a more stringent security policy (as it has clear security advantages. at least, YOU SHOULD disable the LM authentication -native authentication for Win9.x machines - as it is VERY weak) and tell users that this is what they'll have to deal with.