IE likes you to log in...



  • My girlfriend comes to me with a problem she is having on her windows pc. "I cant log in on this website! And I need this website really badly and blablablabla...". So, I checked the website. Got a popup asking me to log in (.htpassword?) and when logged in, everything worked fine. "Yeah, but on my pc its not working!". So, I take a look on her pc. Apparently, when you use Internet explorer in combination with ASP websites (the old one that has the extension ASP) it will try to log in... Using your pc credentials. So, whatever I tried, it always tried to log in as user "HOME-PC\username", Which caused the website to create a nice "403 Not authorised" error. However, this didnt happen on Chrome, where you get a simple "please log in" popup. Unfortunately, I cannot remove Internet Explorer.

    Hour later, she asked me if I could install word, because she got problems with openoffice when opening files from school. Facepalm moment 2: Microsoft doesnt like "standards", nor does it like "different language packs". Since my girlfriend has windows in turkish, and my past experiences with Microsoft, I knew already that I had to go to a turkish website to get Word because else I could get compatibility problems (her pc is in Turkish, and I live in Holland), and probably needed to be in Turkey too to activate the licence. I gave up, installed LibreOffice, and told her that the teachers should send her PDF files instead because her pc cant understand Word files written in English (because her pc is turkish). I am hoping I can get my hands on that pc for enough time that I can install linux on there...



  • @mr_seeker said:

    Microsoft doesnt like "standards", nor does it like "different language packs".

    That's because Microsoft considers the same product in different languages to be different products. This means if you have Windows or Office in English and want to use it in Turkish or Spanish, though luck, you gotta pay again. Some products support "language packs", which localize most of the menus (so "Windows 7 in Spanish" is not the same as "Windows 7 in English with a Spanish language pack", though they look almost identical), however this is usually not free. For example in Windows 7 you need the Ultimate or Enterprise edition to install them, in MS Office you need to buy language packs individually (about 20€ each).

    One of those things that probably makes Microsoft money but makes their products worse for end users. Like having to buy the professional editions of Windows before you can use filesystem encryption. WTF Microsoft? Making your users pay 160€ (that's the cost of upgrading Windows 8 to Windows 8 Pro here) to access THE MOST IMPORTANT COMPUTER SECURITY FEATURE TODAY shows how much you care about them.

    Also, I think this should be in the "Side Bar WTF" forum.



  • @mr_seeker said:

    Apparently, when you use Internet explorer in combination with ASP websites (the old one that has the extension ASP) it will try to log in... Using your pc credentials.
     

    I'm no IE expert, but I thought this only happened if the site is added to the "Trusted Zone".



  • @mr_seeker said:

    Apparently, when you use Internet explorer in combination with ASP websites (the old one that has the extension ASP) it will try to log in... Using your pc credentials.
    Nope, this happens when the website tries NTLM authentication. IE is the only browser that supports it, which is why other browsers just prompt you for username/password normally.
    @mr_seeker said:
    I knew already that I had to go to a turkish website to get Word because else I could get compatibility problems (her pc is in Turkish, and I live in Holland), and probably needed to be in Turkey too to activate the licence.
    Wrong again. You can install and activate any language version of Office with any registration key (with Office 2007 and 2010 you can actually combine multiple language versions into a single installation by simply copying different installers all in the same directory, and you'll be able to choose the display language at any time; Office 2013 removes this loophole, and requires you to buy language packs separately; it does let you choose which language you want when you download the installer).


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