No Old Password Is Visible in the Old Password Box When You Try to Change Your Domain Password

When you try to change your domain password, you may experience the following symptoms:

• The Old password box in the Change Password dialog box may appear to be empty instead of containing asterisks.
• When you click OK after typing in the Old password box, the New password box, and the Confirm new password box, you may receive one or more error messages. The error message you receive depends on what Windows password you currently use, and may occur with one of the following scenarios:
  
  
  • Scenario 1: There is no Windows password file (.pwl).
  • Scenario 2: The Windows password is a null password or is different than the domain password.
  • Scenario 3: The Windows password is the same as the domain password.

This behavior can produce domain user account lockouts in the domain, because the user may enter several times the old password after each error received.

For more information: NOTE: In Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Edition (Me), only scenario 2 and scenario 3 generate error messages.

This problem can occur if your computer is configured to keep the Windows password and the domain password synchronized, and you only have the Client for Microsoft Networks installed.

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.


To work around this problem:

1. If you are using Windows 98 or Windows Me, skip to step 2. If you are using Windows 95, apply the Password.cpl update.
   NOTE: The problem described in this article is resolved in Windows 98.
2. Use Registry Editor to view the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\PwdProvider\MSNP32
   Change the value of the UseMasterKey value to 0. Note that a value of 0 clears the password check box and a value of 1 selects the password check box. Selecting the password check box enables password syncronization between Windows and a Microsoft Windows NT domain.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

For additional information about related topics, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: