Windows 7 - Webserver Login Screen Missing

Currently when I go to the webserver for my webcam (which has a built-in server) for the purpose of doing administration tasks IE8 immediately gives me an "unauthorized" page instead of the login screen (shown at right). It looks like Windows 7 or IE8 is automatically giving it the wrong login data, but I doubt that since if I ever did login, I'm sure it worked properly. There are many security settings on Windows 7 and also in IE8 (running on the Windows 7 client) that I would rather not just delete all form data without really understanding the problem. It still works properly when accessed from both Win98 and Vista machines. It even worked on one Windows 7 machine until it didn't and it when I tried it on another machine running a newer install of Windows 7 it never worked at all. (The older Win 7 install had a credential installed with what looked like a blank username, so I deleted it but it did not help. The newer install of Win 7 never had the credential, probably because I never tried to go to the admin page using that PC until recently.)

Other than this "login screen missing" problem all machines are otherwise working properly on my network for purposes of file and printer sharing.

The way it is supposed to work (and still does in my Vista setup) is the login screen always appears, regardless of whether or not the form data was saved. The difference is that, when saved, the username and password are already filled in. I experience the same results when testing via the internet from a hot spot, so it's not a local network thing. It must be a difference in the settings of IE8 or Windows, so the question becomes what setting, in Windows 7 using IE8, can prevent the appearence of the login screen and just show "Unauthorized" instead.

I had a similar issue. Try this:
Forcing Internet Explorer To Forget To Not Remember - EricLaw's IEInternals - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Thanks. I wish the problem were that simple. I already have a selective password removal tool installed, "IE PassView", showing it's not being remembered. As I tried to explain in my second post, if it IS being remembered by IE, the same login screen would appear with the blanks filled in like the one to the right. The problem I'm having is that no login screen appears and I just get the error in the left picture.

It should be pretty easy to fix, unless somehing on the webserver changed. In IE8, go to Tools > Internet Options > Content > Autocomplete > Settings and checking the User names and passwords on forms and Ask me before saving passwords checkboxes.

Then use the step from my previous post to clear that entry and it should prompt you again. Unless something changed in the headers for some reason. You aren't on a domain are you?

As I said above, "IE PassView" says there is no entry to clear. If there were an entry, it would show up as pre-filled in in the login screen, but the login screen would appear in any case as it does in Vista and used to do in Win_7. But thanks for the alternative to IE PassView; I'll have to try it sometime.

Problem Solved with Reset...Solution Remains a Mystery! Both IE PassView and Desslok's suggested utility agreed that there was no login data associated with the url of the webserver. Nevertheless, I initially used Internet Options/General/Browsing History/Delete/ to delete all 6 types of stored data without "preserving favorites website data". It made no difference as expected since the spy utilities said nothing was there. Next, I deleted the activex control associated with the camera but as expected that made no difference either (since axtivex is used for the image display, not admin tasks). Finally, I did a Reset via the advanced tab of Internet Options without opting to delete "personal settings" and it displayed a message (below).

That fixed it! I then went back to restore all the settings, customizations, and add-ons I could think of that were removed by the reset and it still works fine. Go figure.