I recently set up an isolated, single-server SharePoint site with forms-based authentication (FBA) with the hopes that it would eliminate the need to create unrelated user accounts for all of the SharePoint users. The FBA setup and installation went fine and I used the SharePoint FBA tool on codeplex to administer the accounts and users which is great.

Unfortunately I didn't realize that disabling "Client Integration" in the SharePoint Cental Admin / Application Management / Authentication Providers would have such a dramatic effect on usability. Some of the challenges are using SharePoint Designer, the MySites functionality is impacted, inability to export list data to Excel, as well as inability to integrate with Outlook. The composite screen shot below shows the difference between enabled and disabled client integration.

After spending quite a bit of time configuring and setting up FBA, I don't want to abandon it immediately. I am looking into two options to use the FBA user store (ASPNETDB) with IIS, basic authentication, and SSL. The two likely candidates are MADAM (Mixed Authentication Disposition ASP.NET Module) and Custom Basic Authentication.

I will post updates as available.