3 ms·

The two (yes, two!) implementations that Microsoft ship are also full of crazy bugs that come and go between versions. There's a list compiling known bugs here

by 0x0 11y ago

The two (yes, two!) implementations that Microsoft ship are also full of crazy bugs that come and go between versions. There's a list compiling known bugs here: http://www.greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webdav-redirector-list.html http://www.greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webdav-redirector-list.... and here: http://www.greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webfolder-client-list.html http://www.greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webfolder-client-list.h... It's almost like they sabotaged the clients on purpose to break interoperability.

bazzargh 11y ago
I worked on a document management system 10 years ago, we would loved to have used webdav to present a virtual filesystem from our (linux) servers to Office clients for document retrieval/conversion. It was just impossible. As you say, every version of office & windows had different, severe bugs that meant we couldn't get something as simple as browsing a directory, loading & saving files to work across all versions, and it wasn't like recent versions were better - it was completely unreliable. It turned out to be easier to write plugins for all versions of office than it was to rely on office's own code actually working.
untitaker_ 11y ago
I only have experiences with DavMail in front of an Outlook server. It actually works well, except when it doesn't: http://sourceforge.net/p/davmail/bugs/598/ http://sourceforge.net/p/davmail/bugs/598/ When it rains it pours.
e12e 11y ago
FWIW last time I looked, the sanest way I could find to actually access WebDAV from Microsoft Windows was with Cyberduck: https://cyberduck.io/ https://cyberduck.io/
- 0x0 11y ago
  One of the big "sells" for WebDAV was transparent access like a network drive in Windows clients without the need to install additional software. As a power user, accessing WebDAV isn't much of an issue. But as, say, a software developer wanting to provide a WebDAV service, it's another story :-/
  - brongondwana 11y ago
    "Luckily" everything sends User-Agent strings, so you just have to maintain a giant database of client quirks... ho hum.
  - e12e 11y ago
    Yeah, I was hoping to not need any software in Windows. Having a maintained client that presents a sane UI, with few demands for the back-end ("speaks sane WebDAV") is still quite good -- if you want filesystem like semantics over a secure connection that works reasonably well across the Internet. Note that, according to some recent searching, in windows 7+, WebDAV over TLS w/Basic Auth should be less painful -- I'm going to have to test it later.

by 0x0 11y ago

bazzargh 11y ago

I worked on a document management system 10 years ago, we would loved to have used webdav to present a virtual filesystem from our (linux) servers to Office clients for document retrieval/conversion. It was just impossible. As you say, every version of office & windows had different, severe bugs that meant we couldn't get something as simple as browsing a directory, loading & saving files to work across all versions, and it wasn't like recent versions were better - it was completely unreliable. It turned out to be easier to write plugins for all versions of office than it was to rely on office's own code actually working.

untitaker_ 11y ago

I only have experiences with DavMail in front of an Outlook server. It actually works well, except when it doesn't: http://sourceforge.net/p/davmail/bugs/598/ http://sourceforge.net/p/davmail/bugs/598/ When it rains it pours.

e12e 11y ago

FWIW last time I looked, the sanest way I could find to actually access WebDAV from Microsoft Windows was with Cyberduck: https://cyberduck.io/ https://cyberduck.io/

0x0 11y ago
One of the big "sells" for WebDAV was transparent access like a network drive in Windows clients without the need to install additional software. As a power user, accessing WebDAV isn't much of an issue. But as, say, a software developer wanting to provide a WebDAV service, it's another story :-/
- brongondwana 11y ago
  "Luckily" everything sends User-Agent strings, so you just have to maintain a giant database of client quirks... ho hum.
- e12e 11y ago
  Yeah, I was hoping to not need any software in Windows. Having a maintained client that presents a sane UI, with few demands for the back-end ("speaks sane WebDAV") is still quite good -- if you want filesystem like semantics over a secure connection that works reasonably well across the Internet. Note that, according to some recent searching, in windows 7+, WebDAV over TLS w/Basic Auth should be less painful -- I'm going to have to test it later.