IIS and Mozilla Firebird (also Netscape)

Hey everyone,

Recently I made the switch over from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firebird. Those of you that use Firebird probably know why, and those of you that don't, well, you should start using Firebird. :-)

My problem is that I am unable to view my PHP-driven website locally when using either Firebird or Netscape. (I have a separate webhost for my actual website, but all of my files are also stored on my machine so that I can view it and make changes without actually updating my real site.) It works fine with Internet Explorer, but I'd like to be able to view it with Firebird, as well as Netscape. My problem is as follows:

When using Internet Explorer it is very simple to view my website locally. I simply to go http://localhost/, and because I have the default website for IIS configured correctly, it takes me to the directory where all of my website files are, and the "index.php" takes over as the default.

Now, originally if I did the same thing using Mozilla Firebird or Netscape, they would both prompt me for a username and password that I hadn't a clue as to what they were. So I turned off Windows Authentication in IIS, and this got rid of the username/password part. But then it simply told me that I was not authorized to view the page. So I changed the username for anonymous access from "IUSER_MachineName" to "MachineName\Administrator." Now I get the following error:

"Logon failure: user account restriction. Possible reasons are blank passwords not allowed, logon hour restrictions, or a policy restriction has been enforced."

The account I'm doing this from is configured as an administrator, so I have no clue what's going on. Changing it to "MachineName\MyAccountName" results in the same "Logon failure" error message.

Is there anyone out there that can help me with this? I have spent hours searching the web for answers and changing various settings for IIS, but have never found anything that worked. I am hoping it won't be the same story here...

Thanks in advance!

You should probably reinstall IIS, then give Read access to IUSR_MachineName, it will work, I use Mozilla Firefox and I am able to view my localhost. I think by changing the Username for IIS you have corrupted IIS metabase. So reinstall and try again.

FreeASPHelp,



Reinstall IIS?! But it never worked in the first place--before I fiddled with the username. And please, pardon my ignorance, but how am I to give read-access to IUSR_MachineName? Do you mean the Windows user itself, or something through IIS? Either way, I'm kinda in the dark as to how to go about doing it.

Open the IIS manager and allow basic authentication. IE is the only browser that supports integrated NTLM authentication.

Doug G,



Believe me, I've fooled with that before and it didn't work. I tried again and it still doesn't work.

This is really frustrating to me. I've read several places now something about syncing the password for IUSR_MachineName with that of the anonymous login password, but that doesn't work either. I'm wondering what in the world I'm doing wrong here. It has to be something trivial, but I'm too stupid to see it.

Is there anyone out there who can give me exact, detailed instructions on how they got IIS working with Mozilla Firefox?

Thanks in advance...

There is nothing you have to do to use Firefox with an IIS website, other than the usual stuff you need to do to make cross-browser pages.

If vitisting the same page from the same computer, if one browser is forcing an authentication window and another browser doesn't, refer to my previous post.

Doug G,



I did refer to your previous post and it didn't work. That's why I'm still asking for help.

Help with what?

You apparently have some permission setting set incorrectly, and the difference in the way browsers authenticate to the web server seem to be causing different responses.

You could try rephrasing your question with more detail describing what you tried when you were "fooling around" and what happens.

Doug G,


Sorry, I'm not trying to be irritating or anything. Just having a difficult time here.

Basically, I've tried every combination of settings I can think of. I've turned anon access on and off, tried it on with basic authentication, tried it off with basic authentication, tried it with Windows authentication, with both Windows and basic authentication, etc. Nothing works.

If I could just figure out what username and password it's asking for, I could make it work. I've set the password for IUSR_MachineName with computer management and tried using that, but it's rejected each time.

I'm ready to give up here, to be honest. I don't know what the heck I'm doin' wrong, but obviously it's something really stupid if no one else has this big of a problem with it.

Have you created a test page like a test.html with just some simple html in it, and put this page in c:\inetpub\wwwroot or whatever is the root of you web?

Then try from the server computer itself to open http://127.0.0.1/test.html with each browser you are trying to test, and post back with what happens.

Doug G,


Okay, here's what happens: (AA = Anonymous Access, BA = Basic Authentication, WA = Windows Authentication)

AA, no BA, no WA:

Internet Explorer: "You are not authorized to view this page" error
Mozilla Firefox: "You are not authorized to view this page" error
Netscape: "You are not authorized to view this page" error

AA, BA, no WA; AA, BA, WA; no AA, BA, no WA; no AA, no BA, WA; AA, no BA, WA:

Internet Explorer: prompt for username/password; nothing I try works
Mozilla Firefox: prompt for username/password; nothing I try works
Netscape: prompt for username/password; nothing I try works

This is really pathetic, because now I can't even get IE to work. I must have really corrupted something.

Look around the MS site, I think they offer a tool that resets IIS permission settions to the default.

You could temporarily add the IUSR_computername user account to the local Administrators group on the web server & see if that clears up the problem. If so, go back to your web folder and add the IUSR_computername user account to the web.

You have added the default.html and index.html to your documents tab, haven't you? I got these errors when I named my page default.html and only default.htm was allowed.

try typing in the complete path eg http://127.0.0.1/mypage.html and not just the folder, this will make sure that you do not have any document listing issues, also set your site to Anon Access, that should be suffecient.