How do I force Internet Explorer to request a username and password when accessing the Internet through a proxy server?
Hi,The situation I have is this: I'm setting up a Windows 2000 computer and IE6, both with all available updates (not XP, I know, and I'm sorry to have to post in this forum... but it's not too dissimilar to XP I hope) in a commercial environment with a "generic" logon and a restricted account, so that the users can gain Internet access for things such as accessing their web mail. (I don't want them being able to alter too many settings on the W2k computer). To gain Internet access, the companies system requires that the user has previously asked the administrators to set up a username and password - and fair enough, too, of course.If I set up an account on this W2k computer with my username and a temporary password (not my "official" password), internet access is granted, but I have to supply Internet Explorer with a username and password. It seems to "grab" the username from the computer login, and realises that I do have Internet access. The password isn't correct, so IE6 asks me to log in to the proxy server. Fine so far.But if I set up a "generic" username on this computer, and try to gain internet access, I get blocked by the proxy server, and I'm not given the opportunity to enter a username and password.Is there any way I can change this behaviour with Internet Explorer 6, so a username and password is always requested?Thanks for your help,Roger.1 person needs an answerI do too
March 1st, 2010 2:24am

Proxy authentication is not dependent upon Internet Explorer - however, you do have to tell Internet Explorer you are using a proxy server.To force user's to require a username and password or to allow them to log on anonymously or in the background - is all configured on the Proxy server itself... been too long since I have worked with Proxy to remember where that setting is - but you need to look for the setting on the Proxy server.
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March 1st, 2010 8:49pm

Hi sasquatch,Thanks for your reply.I'm sorry if my original lengthy post wasn't very clear; I'll try to do clarify it now. :-)Firstly, I don't want to change the proxy server settings; I couldn't, anyway, because our companies large IT dept. has a strict Internet access policy.What I think is happening with the W2k workstation I'm setting up is that it takes the current username and password, which for argument's sake may be "elect" and "password" (but it isn't... :-) ) and passes these onto IE6 when an attempt is made to access the Internet. The proxy server looks at the username and says to itself "elect isn't in my database of registered users, access will be denied."I can verify that this is what's happening, if I log on to the workstation as "administrator" or set up an account with my real username, and the proxy server seems to recognise the username, but knows the password is wrong. At this point I get a login screen from somewhere, I assume it's IE6, asking for the username, password and domain. (This workstation is part of a workgroup, not the domain, but a computer on the workgroup can access the domain if the correct credentials are typed in.)What I want the workstation to do is not pass the current login details to IE6, so the current user, who is logged in as "elect" (that's short for "electrician" by the way) is required by IE6 to enter a username , password and domain.Hope that this is a bit clearer...Kind regards,Roger.
March 1st, 2010 10:34pm

Partly answered my own question (but not sure why it works...)I've enabled the "guest" account on this computer, given it a password, and modified the "groups" setting to make it a member of the "users" group and it works the way I wanted it to. I don't quite know why "guest" works, but an arbitarily chosen username doesn't...Kind regards,Roger.
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March 2nd, 2010 8:34am

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