OWA asks for password to internal users

First of all, I have caused myself nothing but sorrow by messing with the IIS server on an Exchange box. So, try to stay away from that if you can.

My question is if the users are Win XP Pro or Win2k Pro are thier passwords expired? This has been a problem for me in the past.

Have you tried using Outlook to connect?

Make sure to have integrated windows auth checked on the ExchWeb virtual directory as well, thats where most of the real work is done in OWA and OMA (probably active sync server as well)

--Serp

In the past I've restarted IIS and it would clear up the issue.  There are no errors or red stop signs on the exchange virtual servers. Anonymous and windows integrated methods are checked for the default site and only windows integrated is checked for the exchweb virtual directory.  No errors other than a very occasional 9582 in the event log (virtual memory) which is normal for us an clears up with a boot time defrag every once in a while.

By the way this is exchange 2000 server standard and the users are not disabled and passwords do not expire.

This is Exchange 2000 Standard, and you don't have any Red stop signs in your IIS? That is a problem. By design they are supposed to be on the Red Stop sign. I was told by an Exchange instructor that this was to remind you to leave these virtual servers alone.

You might need to reinstall Exchange.
I'll do some searches on Technet and get back to you.

Nevermind about what I said about the Stop Signs, they are caused because IIS starts before Exchange and the path to the Exchange directory isn't there yet. I learned something today.

Have your done anything with the IIS server on that machine? I've seen the IIS server config get corrupted and have to be reintalled and reattached to Exchange. You might want to try this.

1. Go into Add/Remove Programs.
2. Under Add/Remove Windows components find the IIS server and remove it.
3. Reboot the Exchange server.
4. Go back to the Add/Remove Programs and re add the IIS server.
5. In the Exhange Service pack under the bin folder find and copy smtpreinstall.exe to the same folder on your production Exchange server.
6. Run smtpreinstall.exe. This will re-attach your IIS server to Exchange.

Give that a try.

Sorry here is the location of the file. Smtpreinstall.exe is in the \Server\Support\Utils\i386 folder on the Exchange 2000 SP2 or later SP.

Here is the Technet article - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=290290

I just re-read everything, and for your problem you should follow step 1 - 4 then run the Exchange setup and choose the REINSTALL option. Then reapply the latest service pack. I don't know why I got all caught up with the SMTP reinstall.

Blister252, Thanks for all of the leg work but I really don't have any other supporting evidence that iis is corrupt or that there is a problem with exchange.  Restarting iis does map the virtual directories to where they need to go without a problem.  I think (for now)that this is an authentication issue and that I may have settings that I might not need or need to change.

I'm not 100% sure of not having anonymous checked or letting iis control the password does.

I realize that your Exchange probably isn't corrupted. Re-installing IIS then Exchange would simply refresh all the settings for the OWA web site.

I ran into a similar problem with my Exchange server, and it turned out that my IIS hive was corrupted, just not corrupted enought to blow up the whole IIS server.

So, if someone had gotten into the IIS server where Exchange is installed, and messed with the secutity settings reinstalling might fix the problem. That is why I suggested it.

Thanks again Blister.  I do appreciate your input.  Now, I have found that it's working for domain admins but not for users - yet another permissions/authentication sign.  Anyone have a simple checklist of how permissions should be set on exchange and iis for owa to work internally without providing credentials?

Serpent - anon and integrated are enabled on exchweb dir. Anything I should check on system folders or global settings?

I'm pretty sure you have to disable the anon access, and enable basic and integrated.  If anon is enabled, I think it takes precednt over the secured logons.

--Serp

If iis with exchange starts up and no DC's are available this will happen. Probably due to the systems rebooting automatically after an update.

I simply reboot the iis server and the issue goes away.