I have been using Dropbox to share our pictures of my family (since Retroshare didn't take off with my family). This is a private way for everyone to share and see pictures. The problem is the pictures are getting large. Too large for Dropbox. While I'm considering paying for Dropbox, I can't expect every family member to pay. I decided to try out WebDAV as a possible solution. The recent pictures would be on Dropbox, but I would expose my entire photo collection via WebDAV as an archive of sorts. It has been years since I last played with WebDAV, so I assumed Microsoft worked out all the kinks, since the only problems before were with Windows support. Boy was I wrong!
I'm just going to go out and say it. Windows does NOT support WebDAV. Windows supports a proprietary extension of WebDAV that is not supported by other platforms (Embrace,Extend,Extinguish). Specifically, Windows does not support Basic Auth. This lack of support forces Windows to only work with Sharepoint's WebDAV. You can't set up WebDAV on an Apache webserver.
There are various pages out there talking about fix packs and registry keys, but their are more pages talking about how those tricks don't work. This makes me think the fixes won't be consistent. If the only Windows machines that would access the WebDAV share were under my control, then this wouldn't be an issue. The problem is I have non-techie family that would need to access the share. This means WebDAV support is effectively non-existent.
Technology is supposed to make our lives easier and better. I HATE when technology companies try to prevent that. Mac and Linux support WebDAV. Is it a wonder why people are flocking away from Windows to Mac?
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