Pass Authenication cookie to MS Word to open word document without MS Word authentication popup

Varun Arora 1

Hello,

We have a website where we list the MS Word documents and a WebDav setup and user has to login for viewing the list of documents.
Users can edit the documents online in Office online and while opening the document remotely(by supplying the Client URL through WOPI Host), it asks for Authentication popup.

Is there a way to pass authentication cookie from my website to MS Word to avoid double authentication?

Thanks,
Varun

Emily Hua-MSFT 27,526 Reputation points

2022-02-04T08:20:25.883+00:00

Hi @Varun Arora ,

Your issue seems to be more realted to development, to help you better, I would change the tags. Thanks for your understandings.

Besides, here is a similar link, please check whther this is helpful.
"Opening MS Office and other Docs from a Web Site with Cookies Authentication"

Please Note: Since the web site is not hosted by Microsoft, the link may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.
Tom Jebo 1,906 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-02-04T17:46:58.593+00:00

Hi @Varun Arora ,

If your solution is integrating with M365 cloud office tenant, then you need to use the CSPP (Cloud Storage Partner Program) Yammer group for support. If you have an on-premises deployment of Office Online Server and the question then this is the right place. Please clarify which scenario you are implementing.

Best regards,
Tom Jebo
Sr Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Open Specifications Support
Varun Arora 1 Reputation point

2022-02-04T17:58:02.033+00:00

Hi @Tom Jebo ,

Your understanding is absolutely correct we have an on-premises deployment of Office Online Server.

Thanks,
Varun
Tom Jebo 1,906 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-02-04T18:20:40.573+00:00

@Varun Arora ,

So it sounds like you're asking if the auth cookies or other info can be passed via the ClienUrl or some other variable in the WOPI implementation to be picked up when launching the Office desktop clients. Is this correct?

Best regards,
Tom Jebo
Sr Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Open Specifications Support
Varun Arora 1 Reputation point

2022-02-04T18:23:57.083+00:00

@Tom Jebo

This is correct. We show document list after authentication from our website and we need to pass the cookie or tell MS Word not to authenticate again as the users were already logged in through our website.

Thanks,
Varun
Tom Jebo 1,906 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-02-04T20:00:35.303+00:00

@Varun Arora ,

Do you have the ability to share the cookies between the WebDAV server and your WOPI server? If so, then I think the article @Emily Hua-MSFT shared gives some idea of how this is done. If you configure your WebDAV server to use said cookies, and they are persistent (see note for Microsoft Office in that article) then this should work.

Let me know if that makes sense.

Best regards,
Tom Jebo
Sr Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Open Specifications Support
Varun Arora 1 Reputation point

2022-02-09T03:13:57.667+00:00

Thanks for your reply @Tom Jebo .

I have gone through the solution @Emily Hua-MSFT suggested.
But its not explained that how can we integrate it with Office Online Browser's "Edit in Word" option.

Out WOPI host sends out WebDav url to the document as ClientUrl in CheckFileInfo and we see this option "Edit in Word".

What else we can do to integrate it?

Thanks in Advance,
Varun
Tom Jebo 1,906 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-02-11T23:52:32.493+00:00

@Varun Arora ,

This is not something that the Open Specifications go into in detail and there is not guidance about this specific scenario and flowing credentials across multiple servers. However, I'm looking into the best practice for this including what might work with Word. Likely you'll need to use a credential infrastructure. I'll get back to you with more information when I have it.

Best regards,
Tom Jebo
Sr Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Open Specifications Support
Varun Arora 1 Reputation point

2022-02-15T00:52:01.197+00:00

@Tom Jebo

Cool, thanks. Will wait for your reply.

Regards,
Varun
Varun Arora 1 Reputation point

2022-02-16T18:42:47.55+00:00

Hello @Tom Jebo ,

Just wondering if you have any success around it?

Thanks,
Varun
Tom Jebo 1,906 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-02-16T19:45:00.937+00:00

@VarunArora8583,

Not yet, I'm waiting for some information from our identity team in Office.

Tom
Tom Jebo 1,906 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-02-24T18:48:07.19+00:00

@Varun Arora ,

This is not something that MS-OCPROTO is designed to describe but I dug into it a little.
After discussing with the Office identity team, it turns out that this area is tied to Office configuration service and unfortunately that is not extensible in a way that allows WedDAV communication to flow credentials like this. Their assessment is that the additional authentication will likely be unavoidable.

Tom
Varun Arora 1 Reputation point

2022-02-28T17:25:23.067+00:00

Hello @Tom Jebo

We were able to achieve this with your suggestion dated February 04, for using IT Hit WebDav for sharing cookies with MS Word to bypass additional authentication.

I am not sure I understood your reply correctly, but we need to integrate this functionality with Office Online's Edit in Local App option so that the communication between IT Hit WebDav and MS Word(suggested by you and @Emily Hua-MSFT ) is established once user clicks on Edit in Local App in Office Online.

Thanks,
Varun
Tom Jebo 1,906 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-02-28T17:34:20.677+00:00

@Varun Arora ,

Thanks for the follow-up. My last comment was assuming that @Emily Hua-MSFT 's reference wasn't enough and to clarify that the Open Specifications documents don't cover this scenario.

Tom
Wisal Ahmed 0 Reputation points

2023-02-02T13:39:39.0966667+00:00

Hi Varun,

I am facing similar issue but with the php based Drupal website.
Could you please share how did you fix this issue?

In my case, i am listing ms-word files on a drupal page, and when someone click on the file link, the browser would open the file in ms-word desktop.

Now this works perfectly fine if the file is in public folder, but if i keep files inside folder that requires login then ms-word isn't able to open the file and just trying to access the login page instead of the file, because the website is receving this request from ms-word instead of browser.

I am using this method to open files from webpage in ms-word desktop:
**ms-word:ofe|u|https://domain.com/path/to/file
**
Any help would be much appreciate. Thanks in Advance.

1 answer

Limitless Technology 39,336 Reputation points

2022-02-04T09:12:30.003+00:00

Hello VarunArora,

Please check the solution in the next official article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/networking/credentials-prompt-access-webdav-fqdn-sites

Then set OpenDocumentsReadWriteWhileBrowsing DWORD Value on a client machine under the key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Common\Internet.
Set the Value data to 1.

Additionally, you can considering enabling Cookie Authentication to ease the way of access from your office applications:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/develop/itp-and-third-party-cookies

--If the reply is helpful, please Upvote and Accept as answer--
Please sign in to rate this answer.
Wisal Ahmed 0 Reputation points

2023-02-02T13:40:37.4866667+00:00

Hi,

I am facing similar issue but with the php based Drupal website.
Could you please share how did you fix this issue?

In my case, i am listing ms-word files on a drupal page, and when someone click on the file link, the browser would open the file in ms-word desktop.

Now this works perfectly fine if the file is in public folder, but if i keep files inside folder that requires login then ms-word isn't able to open the file and just trying to access the login page instead of the file, because the website is receving this request from ms-word instead of browser.

I am using this method to open files from webpage in ms-word desktop:
**ms-word:ofe|u|https://domain.com/path/to/file
**
Any help would be much appreciate. Thanks in Advance.
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