Error “The WebDAV server extension is either not installed or not configured properly” in SCCM 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2

I came across a problem when I was installing SCCM 2007 on my Windows 2008 R2 server, where my Management Point was reporting this critical error: –

SMS Site Component Manager faild to install component SMS_MP_CONTROL_MANAGER on server myserver.

The WebDAV server extension is either not installed or not configured properly.
Solution: Make sure WebDAV is installed and enabled. Make sure there is an authoring rule that allow “All users” read access to “All content”. Make sure the WebDAV settings “Allow anonymous property queries” and “Allow property queries with infinite depth” are set to “true” and “Allow Custom Properties” is set to false.

Fair enough. I loaded the IIS management console, connected to the local server and opened the “WebDAV Authoring Rules” option. Here, I added a new authoring rule as the error message suggested, and altered the WebDAV settings to specify the advanced properties.

I had made another change that required a restart, so I restarted my server at this stage intending to re-test the management point when it restarted, however the error persisted. I re-checked the authoring rules and properties, and confirmed that they were correct, yet SCCM was still reporting this critical error.

I tracked down the configuration file for WebDAV under “C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\schema\WebDAV_schema.xml” and compared this to the properties I had set via the IIS management console – They didn’t match!

The following section doesn’t line up with what I specified via the IIS management console: –

<attribute name=”allowAnonymousPropfind” type=”bool” defaultValue=”false” />
<attribute name=”allowInfinitePropfindDepth” type=”bool” defaultValue=”false” />
<attribute name=”allowCustomProperties” type=”bool” defaultValue=”true” />

These values should be “true”, “true”, “false”.

I wasn’t able to make any changes to this file without first taking ownership, due to the default ACL’s, but after I did that, I modified the values and re-saved the file (and also reverted the permissions back to the default).

After a restart of the “World Wide Web Publishing Service” and the “SMS_SITE_COMPONENT_MANAGER” service, everything started working correctly.

13 thoughts on “Error “The WebDAV server extension is either not installed or not configured properly” in SCCM 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2”

  1. Thanks for this post it has helped a lot. I don’t suppose you could post your webdav_schema.xml file? I believe I’m having similar problems however it seems to be the rule that is not created in my webdav_schema.xml.

  2. Hey Mat – that’s a good shout!

    You’ve Just made Friday afternoon even sweeter 🙂 in the UK!

    Just to echo Bobby, thanks for sharing your knowledge mate!

  3. I’d been right through a couple of long posts on this issue and still couldn’t get this to work. Eventually discovered that looking at the WebDev Authoring section at the root of IIS was not good enough. You ALSO need to go the the default web site section in IIS, and click on the WebDev Authoring section. This showed up on my installation as ‘disabled’ – even though the root one was enabled. Changed this one to enabled too, restarted component and finally the management point installed correctly!
    One other point I picked up from another post was that if you make a backup copy of the schema file before you edit it – make sure you rename the original one with a different file extension (e.g. .old). Somehow the WebDev console seems to carry on reading the original file even if you change the filename – but ignores it if you change the file ext. Very odd.

  4. Thanks Hackmuss, I needed that final pointer to enable WebDAV on the Default Web Site, not just at the server level.

  5. You are a lifesaver!

    I tried changing the original xml EXACTLY as you did (and saw the same instructions on a few other websites) but had no luck, still has the same error message.

    I then downloaded your XML file, which now works!
    Love your work!

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