Howto use WebDAV under Windows

Version: 0.1 (2006-03-07): Initial release

Content

What is WebDAV? (disambiguation)
Setting up Windows Explorer to use WebDAV

Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
Step 7
Step 8
Step 9

This howto describes howto use WebDAV services under Windows. While it was written with Windows XP in mind, it should (hopefully) work with other versions of Windows as well.

What is WebDAV?

WebDAV: WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is an extension to the HTTP protocol that enables users to edit files on a remote server. It is defined in RFC 2518. For more information visit wikipedia.org.

Setting up the Windows Explorer to use WebDAV

Setting up the Microsoft Windows Explorer to user WebDAV is very simple and straight forward. After you finished the setup you can access the remote directory pretty much just like any other directory on your local computer.

Step 1:

Open the Windows Explorer and select "My Network Places".

[webdav 01]

Click on "Add a network place". A setup wizard window will open.

Step 2:

[webdav 02]

Simply click on the "Next" button to start the wizard.

Step 3:

[webdav 03]

Now select "Choose another network location" (probably your only choice) and hit the "Next" button.

Step 4:

[webdav 04]

It's time to specify which host and directory we want to connect to. You will get this information from your administrator. All WebDAV services provided by tokkee.org will use the HTTPS protoll that uses encryption. Thus, any address will look like https://domain/directory. You will need to replace domain and directory with the appropriate values. Click "Next" to continue.

Step 5:

[webdav 05]

If you connect to any tokkee.org host, you will get a "Security Alert" telling you that the certificate issuer of the server's SSL certificate is untrusted or unknown. This is because I do not pay any commercial (and known) company to create the certificate for me. You can usually savely hit "Yes" here. If you're uncertain about what to do, contact your administrator.

Step 6:

[webdav 06]

Now, enter your username and password as provided by your administrator. For security reasons I do not recommend that you save this password. Press "OK".

Step 7:

[webdav 07]

The last step is to provide a name that helps you identify this connection. You can enter whatever you want. Press "Next".

Step 8:

[webdav 08]

To finish the wizard you need to click on "Finish"... Now, you can access the remote directory pretty much just like any other directory on your local computer.

Step 9:

[webdav 09]

If you want to open the connection to the server, go to "My Network Places" and you will find a folder with the name that you assigned to the newly created connection.

This howto was written by Sebastian Harl (sh [at] tokkee [dot] org). If you have questions, comments or improvements, feel free to contact me.