Josh is concerned about Sysinternals Live, which was opened to the public yesterday:
Maybe I am just being paranoid , but this very plain site that is hosted on a non-Microsoft.com domain name scares me.
Well, sysinternals.com is a Microsoft-owned and operated domain. It’s no different from live.com or technet.com or foldershare.com or many other domains. One thing that can set your mind at ease is that all the files are digitally signed using Microsoft’s code-signing certificate:
If you launch from saved bookmarks, you’re also safe from typo-squatters. And here’s a cool Windows Vista technique you can use to make access even easier:
- Open the Computer window, right-click any empty space, and choose Add a Network Location from the shortcut menu.
- In the Add Network Location wizard, select Choose a custom network location and click Next
- In the Internet or network address box, enter \\live.sysinternals.com\tools and then click Next.
- Give the shortcut a name and click Next.
- Click Finish to save the shortcut and open it in Windows Explorer.
If you open the shortcut in Step 3 using Internet Explorer, in XP or Vista, it should open in Windows Explorer. Here’s what the directory listing looks like. It’s important to note this is a WebDAV share, not a conventional Windows folder share. That means it’s accessible via HTTP (corporate firewalls like that) but behaves like a folder.
You’ll notice that live.sysinternals.com appears as a computer in the Network folder (left column). In this case I typed some terms in the Search box to filter the list of search results.
Because I saved this as a network location, I can return to it any time from the Computer folder in Windows Explorer, where the shortcut is under the Network Locations group.
Ed Bott 
Given that the URL works on none of my computers, I’m assuming I’ve locked down my router a bit tight. I’d be happy to RTFM if I knew what I was looking for. Any clue what type of activity I’ve disabled? (I know this is not a tech support forum, of course, but the answer might help others too.)
Timothy, check the WebDAV page at Wikipedia, which has some troubleshooting clues in it. The answer might be related to authentication.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV
Thanks, Ed!
I’ve run into a problem in that connecting with the UNC path \live.sysinternals.com\tools locks up both Windows Vista SP1 PCs that are members of my AD domain. The one Vista PC I have that’s configured for a Workgroup works fine with the UNC path. I can access the site via HTTP with no problems on all three machines. This AD domain has been in place for at least five years and has no other name resolution or authentication problems. I’d like to know if it’s just me.
I posted a comment describing this issue to the Sysinternals Site Blog entry for the new Live service, but they deleted my post. Nice.
@Ed
Is the PC you showed above an AD domain member?
@Everyone
Would someone using Vista on an AD Domain chime in and say it works for them? If you get it to work, are you running a .local AD domain?
Thanks in advance.
Nevermind!
Putting the UNC path into the Windows Explorer address bar locks up my Vista domain members. However, using the ‘Add Network location’ specified above works fine.
Looking at the path and original post, I assumed that this was an SMB Windows file share they had opened to the Internet. Ed’s post clarified that it’s WebDAV, not SMB. My guess is that when you put it in the address bar, Vista thinks it’s SMB and tries (forever) to connect to it that way, locking up the rest of the machine. When you add it as a Network Location, Windows knows it’s WebDAV and treats it that way, which works fine.
Thanks, Ed.
“Maybe I am just being paranoid , but this very plain site that is hosted on a non-Microsoft.com domain name scares me”
Does your friend know that systernal used to be an independent (and very good) website that was acquired by Microsoft few years ago ?