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Setting max length for user name

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by alan jones

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I know that Windows 2000 has a maximum user name length of 20 characters. Is there a way to make the maximum length 10 characters? We are in a mixed W2K and IBM AS/400 environment. The AS/400 has a maximum user id length of 10. For various reasons Ineed the W2K and AS/400 user names to be the same so I am looking for a way to "force" a maximum length of 10 characters in W2K. The ideal solution would allow users to enter more than 10 characters but have W2K recognize only the first ten.

Thank you for your responses.

3 replies

by timwalsh

In Win2k, the administrator determines the user ID when setting up the user's account. To me, the simple solution is to have the administrator not create user IDs longer than 10 characters. Or, since you said you need the user IDs to be the same for the AS/400 and Win2K. Create the user ID in the AS/400 environment first, and then use the same user ID in Win2K.

Who controls set up of user accounts on Win2K computers vs. the AS/400? It might make sense to have the same person control bothrather than have users control setup of accounts on their computers.

To answer your question, there may be a registry hack to limit the user ID to 10 characters, but there isn't a way from within the user creation tools provided by Microsoft.
If you are using Active Directory (AD), have Enterprise Administrator privileges, and are anAD guru, it is possible to modify the attributes for the User object, but this is not for the faint-hearted. Unless you are a true AD expert, I wouldn't suggest this route.

Hope this helps some.

by alan jones

Thanks for the response. We decided to just limit login names to the 10 character length when created. I figured there was no easy way to do what I wanted. IBM is revising how Client Access takes user names and passwords from Windows in a future release of Client Access (the PC to AS/400 interface) and this will solve my issue. But, we will consider it solved using the simple and low tech approach. Thanks!

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