Consider the following before using the native Windows clients

Unfortunately, Windows support for WebDAV is a little strange and may not always function correctly. We therefore recommend using one of the following WebDAV clients for Windows:

• WebDrive is a robust product that has been on the market for many years.
• DriveOnWeb is another good product, but the product is directed towards German speaking people.
• Total Commander together with the WebDAV plugin provides a FTP like interface to a WebDAV server.

In addition to the above tools, the Microsoft Office products have built in WebDAV support. As an example, Microsoft Word can directly open and edit remote documents by using a WebDAV server. See our Edit Remote Documents Using Microsoft Word tutorial for more information.

Mapping a Windows Drive to a WebDAV Server

This tutorial shows you how to connect a Folder or a Windows Drive Letter to any WebDAV server, what to do if the command fails, what not to do, and security. This tutorial is for Windows XP/Vista client users.

The Two WebDAV Windows Clients

Microsoft Windows provides two WebDAV clients: Web Folders and WebDAV Mini Redirector. The clients are integrated and come preinstalled with your Windows.

Web Folders

The first generation WebDAV client provided by Microsoft is called Web Folders and allows one to drag and drop between a remote WebDAV server and your local computer. The Web Folders client provides functionality similar to (secure) FTP. Note Web Folders is not available on Vista.

1. Go to My Network Places, and click on Add Network Place at the top of the left sidebar.
2. The window that pops up is the Add Network Place Wizard. Click Next.
3. On the next page, enter the URL of the WebDAV folder in the box named Internet or network address and click Next.
4. A window asking for your username and password will pop up at this point. Enter your username and password, and click OK.
5. On the next page, enter a name for this share -- this is the name that will show up in the My Network Places listing.
6. Click Finish on the next page.

WebDAV Mini Redirector

The second generation Microsoft WebDAV client is called WebDAV Mini Redirector and allows one to map a WebDAV location to a Drive letter the same way as if you were using a Windows File Sharing/SMB/CIFS share.

• No support for HTTPS, i.e. no support for secure connections.
• Your WebDAV server must be using port 80, the default port.
• Typically fails when transfering larger files.
• Gets confused if the user does not have access to read and/or write to a file or directory.

1. Right click on My Computer and select Map Network Drive.
2. In the Folder "entry field", enter the URL, and click Finish.
3. Enter your username and password in the authentication box that appears.

Be sure to enter the correct username and password. WebDAV Mini Redirector may not take no for an answer and may continue attempting to login until the hacker prevention logic in BarracudaDrive bans your client's IP address. You will get an obscure error message in the console. You can see if you are banned by attempting to login using a browser.

You can use the network drive like you use your C:\ hard drive as soon as the command completes successfully. This means that you can directly work with documents without first copying them, start computer programs, and more over the Internet.

The following image shows a Windows Explorer window listing the content of a WebDAV server.

What to do if the command fails

Error messages such as "The network name cannot be found" can be related to a number of problems. The first thing to do is to check if your client is disabled.

You can download and run the following command file, which will attempt to start the Windows WebDAV client.

You can alternatively enable the client manually:

Start the WebClient Service

Go to:
Control Panel -> Performance And Maintanance -> Administrative Tools -> Services
Scroll down until you see WebClient.

Set WebClient to automatic and start the service. Try to connect from a command window and restart Windows if it fails.

Things get a bit complicated if you have the same problem after enabling the WebClient service and after rebooting Windows. You may have to upgrade your WebDAV Mini Redirector Windows client.

You can do a search on Google and you will find many articles related to the WebDAV Mini Redirector problems. You can also see Wikipedia: WebDAV and Microsoft Windows.

Microsoft has ackowledged there are Web Folder issues in Vista, but unless your system is 64-bit, you should be able to get Web Folders working by installing an update from Microsoft and using the instructions and "workarounds" in the following steps:

If you have a 32-bit Vista apply this Software Update for Web Folders (Microsoft.com).

What not to do when using the BarracudaDrive server

You might come up with the clever idea and connect to localhost, i.e. have the WebDAV Mini Redirector and BarracudaDrive on the same computer. There are no reasons to do this, except for testing.

Never do the following on a Windows computer if BarracudaDrive is running in console mode or if using the free BarracudaDrive version:

The above command will lead to an endless loop between Windows and BarracudaDrive as BarracudaDrive will try to access the new WebDAV network drive, which loops back into BarracudaDrive. This command will crash your Windows computer.

However, the following command is OK:

Security

One cannot use a secure connection when using the WebDAV Mini Redirector, i.e. the following command will fail, unless you are using Vista:

When using WebDAV Mini Redirector, all data exchanged with the BarracudaDrive server is sent unencrypted and might be eavesdropped. Use one of the alternative clients mentioned above if you need secure communication.

References

WebDAV Mini Redirector:

Web Folders: