Windows XP Home and Media Center Network Passwords

[jimmysjams]

I am working on a program to create connection settings and map
network drives for users over a VPN. I have stated that the program
will not support any version of Windows earlier than XP. The problem
I am encountering is with XP Home and MCE. I am using cmdkey (which I
have packaged with the program) to store the user name and password
for our network sites, which use Windows authentication. After some
research I have discovered that this particular feature is not
available in Home nor MCE.

How do I authenticate an account on a computer that isn't on my
organization's domain? More specifically, how do I present role
specific content to users who are connected via VPN without requiring
them to enter their user name and password a second time? I have the
user name and password after passing it to the VPN client, but how do
I use it to grant access to our intranet sites? Is it a registry key
value change?

 

[Old Rookie]

I believe that is a hard coded limitation of Home and MCE. I also found the
same with Vista Home where you can map a drive, it prompts user for
credentials, and you tell it save but after a reboot it does not work. The
only workaround I know of is to have the user logon to their computer with
the username and password that is used to authenticate them to the domain
and that usually passes through after a VPN logon.

You can also map drives with the net use command and even leave it on the
desktop as a script to run manually including the credentials needed to
authenticate to the server though those credentials are stored in clear text
obviously.

net use p: \\servername\share password /USER:myAccount /PERSISTENT:NO

Steve

 

[Anteaus]

If the VPN is connected by way of a 'network' control-panel shortcut, then
MyLogon can establish this on-demand. If launched after local logon it will
still require a second entry of the password, but at least it will avoid
re-entering the username and other info.

http://mylogon.net

With correct settings, this will give Home/MCE access to most domain
resources, with the exception of profiles and policies.

As far as I know there is no way of accessing the password that was used to
logon to the computer, unless the program in-question handled the logon. (If
there was a way for other programs to access this info it would be a security
issue, anyway.)

Alternatively, look at one of the scripting languages that provides
drive-mapping capability. A compiled script containing the password would be
safer than a plaintext batch file.

 

[jimmysjams]

I am working on a program to create connection settings and map
network drives for users over a VPN.  I have stated that the program
will not support any version of Windows earlier than XP.  The problem
I am encountering is with XP Home and MCE.  I am using cmdkey (which I
have packaged with the program) to store the user name and password
for our network sites, which use Windows authentication.  After some
research I have discovered that this particular feature is not
available in Home nor MCE.

How do I authenticate an account on a computer that isn't on my
organization's domain?  More specifically, how do I present role
specific content to users who are connected via VPN without requiring
them to enter their user name and password a second time?  I have the
user name and password after passing it to the VPN client, but how do
I use it to grant access to our intranet sites?  Is it a registry key
value change?

The drives are mapping properly with no problem. In fact it is
running to specs on every machine it's been tested on with the
exception of XP Home and MCE. It hasn't been tested on a Vista Home
Basic machine but I expect it to encounter the same problem with not
storing intranet web site passwords.