Working on this fresh Appian 7.8 install I seem to be stuck at a certain point.

Thanks, you are correct that was interfering and the article seemed to do the job and the login disappears. The applications still don't deploy but at least there was one hurdle cleared.

I just get a "Page Not Found" error when attempting to access designer now. Looking in the server logs it looks like not everything gets deployed completely and there is still an authentication error. Here is an example of an issue where JBoss attempts to deploy:

04:10:15,699 INFO [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-2) JBAS015876: Starting deployment of "null" (runtime-name: "ss.war")
04:10:19,447 WARN [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-2) JBAS015960: Class Path entry jaxb-api.jar in /C:/appian/search-server/ss.ear/ss.war/WEB-INF/lib/jaxb-impl-2.1.10.jar does not point to a valid jar for a Class-Path reference.
04:10:19,449 WARN [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-2) JBAS015960: Class Path entry activation.jar in /C:/appian/search-server/ss.ear/ss.war/WEB-INF/lib/jaxb-impl-2.1.10.jar does not point to a valid jar for a Class-Path reference.

It looks like something funny with the class path and I'm not having luck finding this setting.

The other type of error I get is this datasource authentication error:

04:10:19,899 ERROR [org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources.AbstractDataSourceService$AS7DataSourceDeployer] (MSC service thread 1-2) Exception during createSubject()PBOX000016: Access denied: authentication failed: java.lang.SecurityException: PBOX000016: Access denied: authentication failed
          at org.jboss.security.plugins.JBossSecuritySubjectFactory.createSubject(JBossSecuritySubjectFactory.java:84)
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer$1.run(AbstractDsDeployer.java:1078)
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer$1.run(AbstractDsDeployer.java:1073)
          at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) [rt.jar:1.7.0_71]
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer.createSubject(AbstractDsDeployer.java:1072)
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer.deployXADataSource(AbstractDsDeployer.java:885)
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer.createObjectsAndInjectValue(AbstractDsDeployer.java:338)
          at org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources.AbstractDataSourceService$AS7DataSourceDeployer.deploy(AbstractDataSourceService.java:316)
          at org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources.AbstractDataSourceService.start(AbstractDataSourceService.java:120)
          at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.startService(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1980)
          at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.run(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1913)
          at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145) [rt.jar:1.7.0_71]
          at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615) [rt.jar:1.7.0_71]
          at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745) [rt.jar:1.7.0_71]

Thanks, you are correct that was interfering and the article seemed to do the job and the login disappears. The applications still don't deploy but at least there was one hurdle cleared.

I just get a "Page Not Found" error when attempting to access designer now. Looking in the server logs it looks like not everything gets deployed completely and there is still an authentication error. Here is an example of an issue where JBoss attempts to deploy:

04:10:15,699 INFO [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-2) JBAS015876: Starting deployment of "null" (runtime-name: "ss.war")
04:10:19,447 WARN [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-2) JBAS015960: Class Path entry jaxb-api.jar in /C:/appian/search-server/ss.ear/ss.war/WEB-INF/lib/jaxb-impl-2.1.10.jar does not point to a valid jar for a Class-Path reference.
04:10:19,449 WARN [org.jboss.as.server.deployment] (MSC service thread 1-2) JBAS015960: Class Path entry activation.jar in /C:/appian/search-server/ss.ear/ss.war/WEB-INF/lib/jaxb-impl-2.1.10.jar does not point to a valid jar for a Class-Path reference.

It looks like something funny with the class path and I'm not having luck finding this setting.

The other type of error I get is this datasource authentication error:

04:10:19,899 ERROR [org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources.AbstractDataSourceService$AS7DataSourceDeployer] (MSC service thread 1-2) Exception during createSubject()PBOX000016: Access denied: authentication failed: java.lang.SecurityException: PBOX000016: Access denied: authentication failed
          at org.jboss.security.plugins.JBossSecuritySubjectFactory.createSubject(JBossSecuritySubjectFactory.java:84)
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer$1.run(AbstractDsDeployer.java:1078)
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer$1.run(AbstractDsDeployer.java:1073)
          at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) [rt.jar:1.7.0_71]
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer.createSubject(AbstractDsDeployer.java:1072)
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer.deployXADataSource(AbstractDsDeployer.java:885)
          at org.jboss.jca.deployers.common.AbstractDsDeployer.createObjectsAndInjectValue(AbstractDsDeployer.java:338)
          at org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources.AbstractDataSourceService$AS7DataSourceDeployer.deploy(AbstractDataSourceService.java:316)
          at org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources.AbstractDataSourceService.start(AbstractDataSourceService.java:120)
          at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.startService(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1980)
          at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.run(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1913)
          at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145) [rt.jar:1.7.0_71]
          at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615) [rt.jar:1.7.0_71]
          at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745) [rt.jar:1.7.0_71]