Windows XP, WebDAV, and Usernames
Windows XP has a well known problem affecting how it passes usernames to WebDAV servers. The problem is that is prepends a windows domain to the front of the username. That is, the username must be in the form “DOMAIN\username.” This causes problems with many WebDAV servers where usernames alone are the norm. Some sites provide advice on how to reconfigure your apache HTTP server to compensate for this but they typically involve installing additional software. I have uncovered a simple work around that allows you to trick Windows XP into passing the username alone.
The trick is that when you specify the URL to your WebDAV host, you should put your username in the URL. For example, if your WebDAV server is http://webdav.domain.com/ and your username is “fred,” you would put enter http://fred@webdav.domain.com/ as the URL to the server. When you are prompted for your username and password you would provide simply “fred” with your password. You will be prompted for your username and password many many times but eventually it will complete the process and you will have a usable WebDAV folder.
It is important to note that under Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) HTTP Basic Authentication is disabled by default. This may prevent this process from working. You can re-enable Basic Authentication by inserting the appropriate registry key and rebooting.