Windows XP and WebDAV

I am playing with ownCloud on a laptop (the U810 to be precise) as a nice way having  cloud-y storage when I'm at home that I can pick up and take along  when I go travelling to non-networked locations. The way of getting stuff onto it is primarily WebDAV, and although I am mostly Linux-based, there are XP boxes (and the odd Mac) in my life too.

However, WebDAV on Windows seems to have a troubled existence - there is much material online on its brokeness at various levels. Microsoft seems to had had several goes at a client, each with its own bugs and idiosyncrasies. Herewith is what worked for me with the XP SP3 built-in client (the WebClient service).

1. Create a Network Place but ensure that you specify port 80 explicitly - or else the place creation fails as, I think, Windows tries to mount it as a CIFS. It's not like the "http:" is a clue!
2. Edit the Registry and create HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters\UseBasicAuth as a DWORD and set it to 2 (forces BASIC authentication). Why is authentication in Windows always borked in some way?
3. Forget about https: connections

The lack of https: might be an issue except that I'm primarily interested in getting stuff off the Windows boxes. Once that's done I can probably push the odd new file up through the Web UI and not bother with WebDAV on XP much more.