Customizing the HTML forms used for client form-based authentication

Since the release of ISA Server 2006, many customers have been asking for instructions on how to customize HTML logon forms. I'm happy to announce that this document is now available! To view the document, go to Customizing HTML Forms in ISA Server 2006.

ISA Server 2006 comes with a complete set of preconfigured HTML logon forms used when Web publishing rules specify forms-based authentication. These forms can be used in their default configuration, or can be customized, allowing you to provide a different look for the logon forms for different published Web sites.

The default HTML logon forms reside in the CookieAuthTemplates directory that was created when you installed ISA Server 2006. This directory contains two folders: ISA and Exchange. The form sets in these folders include the default logon pages (.htm), and the strings file containing all the text strings used in the the logon forms (strings.txt).

When ISA Server displays an HTML form, it replaces the placeholders in the .htm files with the strings in the strings.txt file of the language specified in the language settings of the client's browser, or as specified in the Web listener. Text string customization is done by modifying the strings in the strings.txt file that correspond to the placeholders in the .htm files.

Note that before customizing HTML forms, you should create a backup of the forms in the original forms folder.

For details and instructions, see the document Customizing HTML Forms in ISA Server 2006. 

Gabriel Koren, ISA Server Test Team