Windows machines authenticating slightly differently.

[Toby Archer]

I have a weird problem, I'm not sure if anyone here can help but I figured it is worth a try cause I've run out of ideas.

Our HR department recently sent in a bug where if you click on a link in a word document to our portal it takes you through authentication but then leaves you on CAS instead of taking you back to the portal. Nothing to odd there, but then things get interesting. If you copy-paste the link instead of clicking on it, then it works. If you click on it after you have already copy-pasted it, and therefore cleared authentication already, it works. The problem occurs in all browsers, but only on windows. So we went to Wireshark, quote from my network engineer colleague "The packets int the connection establishments look similar but not exactly the same. I have no idea why that would be, unless it's something underlying to the Windows way of doing things."

Anyone experienced anything like this? The slightest of different behavior between Windows and Linux, so slight it doesn't seem quantifiable but never the less causes problems.