Network install will not load with IE8.

[zyzzy21]

Hello All,

I may be a little over my head or just have a very unique situation. I am currently running the latest version of Xampp, which has had a few hic-ups over the past two months. I am on a network were IT will only allow IE6 for a web browser. I have Xampp installed on a workstation, and all users using IE6 can access each page normally. I have on user that is using IE8, if the Automatic Configuration Scirpt is enabled, any time he tries to acces the "Local" intranet, IE8 serches and resolves a .com for the local host name. I have changed his host file with the IP for the workstation, still no change. For example, in his host file xxx.xxx.xx.xxx \\networksite, when trying to access http://networksite/elearn, IE8 resloves the address as http://www.networksite.com/elearn. If i disable the Automatic Configuration Script this user cannot access any internet address.

Some back history, both IE6 and IE8 were working before our workstation's motherboard fried. Working with new PC, orignal hard drive, didn't reinstall Xampp. Could this be the cause?

Any help would be appreciated.

[JonB]

Sure sounds like a network configuration issue to me. Ask those friendly IT folks if they are either/both - running their own DNS and/or a Procy Server like Microsoft's ISA.

Good luck

[zyzzy21]

I installed IE8 onto my PC to see if this was an IE8 problem (or security feature) and I can load all pages without any problem. Xampp server is located on a seperate work station. This is pointing toward a setting on this users PC, but all seem to match my own.

The network does have another Intranet for ASP pages, but located on a seperate server (still a noob, not sure if that makes a difference)

[JonB]

OK

FYI - this part wouldn't work anyway:

in his host file xxx.xxx.xx.xxx \\networksite,

the hosts file ONLY works with the DNS resolver, the lmhosts file is used for mapping NetBIOS/share names.

It is possible that the workstation in question can't "see" 'networkste'. the LMHOSTS entry would be
xxx.xxx.xx.xxx networksite (no backslashes)

So I guess you could try that...

If i disable the Automatic Configuration Script this user cannot access any internet address.

My guess is that this was 'turned on' for a good reason (LOL - like being able to get on the internet).

And now that I have gone through this a couple of times, it occurs to me that the reason for the auto-configure may be the same as the reaason you are having a problem - there's something unique about how that machine works or is connected to the network. which brings up another question - have you pinged the IP of 'networksite' from the station that doesn't want to work?

(if you can't PING that address successfully - this makes sense)
However, I think the problem is in a browser autocomplete behavior. It might be a setting in IE8's Internet Options Advanced, but I'm betting on a third party toolbar. What's happening is that IE (or a helper app in IE) is trying to complete what appears to be an incomplete URL. (note what's added 'www.' on one end and '.com' on the other). If the user has third party toolbars installed/running try disabling them. I don't think the MS DNS resolver is responsible for this.

One silly question? Why not ask an IT person?

[zyzzy21]

JonB,

Thank you for your suggestions, here are my findings

have you pinged the IP of 'networksite' from the station that doesn't want to work?

Ping completes with no errors, can access http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/elearn with not problems. However all links within this site direct toward http://networksite/ (not my design), which is autocompleted to http://www.networksite.com/.

I am currently matching all settings and plugins from my PC to this users PC to test, however, this may take a while as were in a call center and call volume interupts.

One silly question? Why not ask an IT person?

This setup wasn't exactly approved, . They know of the training server being accessed through the network, but they are unaware of the Xampp webserver as the method of delivery.

[BigWetDog]

This is just a total shot in the dark, but have you looked the apache logs to determine if there are any requests being logged from the problem client?
I'd also validate the network configuration of that client.