After a long break I though I’d get back and start writing some posts, and with that comes a hang my head in shame confession.

I’m installing a developer VM for Sharepoint 2010 Foundation, which is a self contained VM configured with the following;

• Windows Server 2008 R2 x64
• Active Directory (local domain)
• DNS
• IIS
• SharePoint 2010
• Development Stack (Visual Studio et al)

It all goes well, and I’m very impressed with the installation procedure in 2010 as compared to MOSS, I especially like Managed Accounts, a great idea.

Since I’m going to use port 80 for my Web Applications, I configure DNS with appropriate A (Host) records, disable IPV6, and most important in this kind of environment, I disable the loopback check, as described here.

I create some Wep Applications and Site Collections and attempt to navigate to the new Site Collections, this is where the problems start.

IE prompts me my credentials, which I enter but then it keeps prompting me for credentials. If I cancel the dialog out, a completely blank page is displayed. Nothing is shown in the event log, or the SharePoint logs. I try the other Web Applications but get the same response.

I remove all the Web Applications and create a new one without using a Host Header name, and this work fine. I’m a bit flumoxed as Googling the problem all seems to point to the lookpback check being disabled which I’ve done.

Except that I hadn’t, reading MSDN support article 896861, one of the workarounds is to add a DWORD entry to the following Registry key:-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa 

What I’d actually done is add the DWORD entry to Registry Key:-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Lsa

Having spotted the mistake, I corrected it, rebooted and magically I could navigate successfully to Host Header’d Web Applications.

Critical Path Training have a great installation walkthrough for SharePoint 2010, you have to register but it’s free.