Integrating Office and SharePoint in Windows 2008
Three common issues integrating office and MOSS when using Server 2008 as a client:
1) Office cannot browse SharePoint
2) Credential Prompts
3) Where has my Network Places Gone
1. Office Cannot Browse SharePoint
I’ve seen a few times that office 2007 or 2010 when installed on Windows 2008 or 2008R2 will not by default allow you to browse SharePoint sites. You get an error like “Path does not exist. Check Path and try again”
or “You can’t open this location using this program. Please try a different location”
This is very frustrating when setting up a “BI build” for 2007 stack or the new 2008r2 stack as I have been doing recently.
the solution is documented here:
To summarize we just need to add the “desktop experience feature” to the Server. Note that this only applies when you are actually using the server as a workstation such as a demo or dev build. Production servers do not need this.
2) Credential Prompts
Another common problem when using a server as a desktop is IIS will continually prompt for credentials. The reason is security: Windows 2008 server and above have removed the “Intranet Zone” that logs you on automatically. See this URL for more details
https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/258063
In many cases removing the new “Enhanced IE security” and “Protected Mode” resolves this – again this is just for demo and dev environments…
3) Where is my network Places
Network places was useful as a way to store short cuts to document libraries.
See this site for this workaround
https://duitwithsbs.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/wheres-my-network-places-in-vista/
Note that you don’t “need” Network places in office 2010 as it has Favourites and Libraries which can both be customized.