Vista behind ISA proxy

[Guest]

Several times a week we have customers and contractors requesting Internet
access from their laptops to check webmail etc while onsite. The process to
do this is simple; we inspect the laptop for security compliance and, if it
passes, we issue ISA server proxy settings and a username/password to access
web through it.

This works great if you're on a Windows XP box. Not so good when the Vista
laptops start showing up (as they are now).

In a nutshell (where all problems seem to fit) the Vista boxes don't seem to
accept that they have an Inet connection. The network map (in the network and
sharing center) shows the LT ---- My.DomainName ------ A FAT RED X --------
The Inet

IPConfig shows and address/GW/DNS on the local net on the LAC adapter and
PINGs tot he ISA server are 100% yet IE 7 spits out a blank page. Diagnosis
shows that there is no connection to the Internet.

I'm an experienced net guy but a bit of a virgin to troubleshooting
Vista/IE7/Proxy issues.

Any advice?

TIA,
-J

 

[Joe Guidera]

If you're using an authenticated proxy (e.g. ISA) then they could be having
a problem in that the proxy might not be prompting them for a set of
credentials to authenticate with. What happens if you temporarily test by
allowing the web proxy without authentication? if that works the other
thing you can try is adding a set of cached credentials (e.g. the userid
password that you are issuing to them) in control panel user accounts for
the fully qualified name of the proxy.

Also, I'm assuming you are statically configuring your proxy and not using
either DNS or DHCP to issue?

I'm running Vista Ultimate behind ISA server and it does work without a
problem, but I have not configured the ISA server proxy to require
authentication.

Joe

 

[Guest]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your time and response.

We are indeed using Auth on the ISA proxy which works a treat using 2K or XP
but clearly not with Vista. Yes, we are statically assigning proxy settings
to the guests after their laptops pass muster.

I'll try opening the proxy temporarily to see if it allows access and, if
not, I'll try the cached credentials config.

If you're using Vista behind ISA without authentication then I have to
presume our issue lies in the auth proxy settings.

I'll report back here with what I discover.

-J

 

[Guest]

Please, please, tell how did you fix this thing out, i can't make two brand
new laptops get internet access through ISA Server 2004, both equipments came
with Windows Vista Business, one can get internet but not mail and the other
can get mail can't get web access. Both equipment are already in my domain.

It's crazy, neither HP nor Microsoft should be relaesing this
hardware/software into an empresarial enviroment if it is not mature enough,
we, the it people, are paying the consecuences.

 

[Guest]

The truth is that I haven't figured this out yet b/c I haven't had a customer
onsite with a Vista laptop since I posted this back in Sept. The issue for us
is strictly with non domain member Vista machines that refuse to see that
they are behind an ISA proxy. Until there is a workable resolution that
allows this OS out through ISA using proxy auth my answer will simply be that
we don't support outbound guest connections through the proxy and they'll
have to relocate to an area that I have setup using a different outbound
method. It's restrictive but necessary.

I can't believe that getting a vendor's product to work with another of
their own products is so difficult. Either I'm just missing something or
someone @ MS dropped the ball.

Good luck and please post back here if you solve this.

 

[Guest]

I have exactly the same problem, could you please tell me if you figured out
how to fix it?

Thanks in advance