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disabling Win 98 local password box

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by jjvtechrep

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Hi,

I am running a network - NT4 server with 50 Win 98 workstations.

Local WIN 98 passwords seem to cause a problem with the IPC$ NT4 system share.

So, I would like to prevent Win98 from asking users for a local password, after they enteredtheir network user name and password in the connexion box.

Is it possible to disable the second box, other than telling everyone to enter a void second password the first time they get connected ? ( I am working in a school and many kids wouldn'tdo that reliably ).

Thanks for helping !

Jean-Jacques Vergier, France.

9 replies

by dennis_herr_jr

One thing you can do is set the local password the same as the network password. That will eliminate the second box popping up. If I remember, you can also go into the control panel and change the windows password to blank. I believe that this will also eliminate the second box.

by jjvtechrep

Well, in fact I already passed through these steps.
Setting same passwords for network and workstation leads to session conflicts ( with IPC$ share ) when the NT password expires and is changed.
And changing the Win98 password to blank works only until a new user logs in from the workstation.
In fact I am seeking for a way to disable the Win98 password function altogether.
Anyway, thanks a lot for taking the time to answer.

by nettek

Run regedit and navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network
Create a DWORD value of DisablePwdCaching. Set the Hexadecimal value to 1. The Win98 machine will no longer prompt for or store local passwords. To simplify the process, make the adjustment on one machine, then export the registry key. You can then simply import it on all the other machines.

by nettek

I was re-thinking your situation. I have run a large NT ethernet network with about 300 Win9x clients and I never experienced the problems you are experiencing. However, I have had the IPC$ problem accessing an NT network from a 9x client via RAS orVPN. In those cases the local username and password needs to match the domain username and password.

by jjvtechrep

Thanks a lot !
That seems to be working fine : the Win98 clients don't ask for passwords any more, and do not create any .pwl file either.
I'll be careful when installing RAS...

by troubleshootergurl

Hello Jean-Jacques!

There is a PWL file under the C:\Windows folder. This is the "Windows password list file."

If you either run a find with the users log in name ending with the file extension .pwl and simply delete that file, or locate it in Windows Exploring.

Also, You may have multiple users that may log on, Go to Start, find, type in *.pwl -and delete all the pwl files that the find locates.

Hope that helps.

by troubleshootergurl

Jean:

I forgot to mention in my answer that you must complete this task on each individual machine, not on the server of course or you may have picked that up.

Try it. It should work!

Eileen

by jjvtechrep

Hello,
It was a good idea to delete all the pwd list files : it allowed me to test another solution ( see second answer to this question ).
Many thanks...

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