Mapping Document Libraries in Windows Vista

Well here’s one that threw me for a loop.  I was trying to do something very simple – map a network drive to a SharePoint document library to share a OneNote notebook.  Should be easy, right?  Well, it would have been if the WSS site wasn’t set to use Basic Authentication.  Naturally, Vista gave me no indication that this was the problem, it just kept spitting out an obscure ‘failed to connect’ error.  Very helpful.

 

In any event, there’s a KB article regarding this issue here.  Turns out all you have to do is set a registry value to enable Basic Authentication.  Now why wasn’t that turned on by default or, more importantly, why couldn’t Vista tell me what the problem was in the first place?

 

Some days you’re the windshield, and some days you’re the bug, y’know???