Web folders stopped working

Question

I've been using web folders (WebDAV) on Windows. When I access the folder, since yesterday I get the following message (before that, it just worked):

Documents in this folder are not available. The folder may have been moved or deleted, or network problems may be preventing a connection to the server.

I add folders this way:

• My Network Place
• Double click Add Network Places
• Next, select the only option, and next
• Use an "https://domain.nl/folder/" URL (I'm not providing my URL's for privacy and security issues, but I assure they are correct, and have been working in the past, and still work in the browser)

When I do this, I get the following error message:

The folder you entered does not appear to be valid. Please choose another.

I'm using Windows XP. My collegue's computer just works, so it looks like a software or configuration issue. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

I just re-installed my notebook, and everything works fine now.

So the solution is not one of the following (summary of other answers):

• The WebClient service doesn't run or hangs;
• kb810266: solves extended characters in combination with Office XP;
• kb888039: solves issues with spaces (%20) in the URL.

Answer 2

There is an entire Microsoft KB article regarding this issue here. However, I have found that a good first step is to re-install the Software Update for Web Folders (I would link but new users only get one hyperlink per post).

The last time I encountered this issue I needed to re-image the machine before WebDAV would work properly again.

Answer 3

Go to Start | Run, then type Services.msc to open the services management console. Once there, check the status of the "WebClient" service. If it is stuck in the "starting" or "stopping" status, then there may be something happening during the startup of your computer that is conflicting with the service.

I had a similar problem on my machine and while I did not figure out what the conflict was, an easy workaround was to:

1. Set the Startup Type of the WebClient service to "Manual".
2. Download the Windows Resource Kit from Microsoft.
3. Install the resource kit (or just extract "sleep.exe" from it to your Windows\System32 directory)
4. Create a text file called "WebClient.bat" in whatever directory you like.
5. Add the following lines to the WebClient.bat file:

sleep 30

net start webclient

Save the file, then create a shortcut to it under All Programs | Startup

This should create a delayed startup of the WebClient service which will hopefully give whatever other process that is causing a conflict enough time to do its thing before the WebClient service tries to start. You may need to adjust the "sleep" delay depending on the startup speed of your system.