-50 Error when attempting to change password

[Sharkus]

Good Morning All,
I had a friend mention the following to me, and I've managed to reproduce it, so I thought I'd ask if anyone else has seen this issue, and more importantly, if they have a solution to it.

I have a few macs with OS versions ranging from 10.3.9 to 10.4.9. I have a windows 2000 server with Services for Macintosh installed to provide AFP services for the macs.

When I try to change the password for a user account via the "Connect To Server" dialog on a 10.4.8 or 10.4.9 machine, I see a dialog stating: "Change Password Failed: -50". If I try the same on a 10.3.9 machine I can change my password.

I've had a look at the "options" section in the Connect to Server dialog and one difference between 10.3 and 10.4 is that the password encryption, in other words the UAM that the client will use is different. For 10.3.9 it states it'll use ClearText, for 10.4.x it states "Microsoft UAM 2.0". I'm guessing this has some bearing on the issue.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what may be causing this issue and how to resolve it? The user does have the rights to change their password, and, as mentioned they can sucessfully change it on 10.3.9.

[melon]

Taken from here (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4339169), quote from Apple:

This is known problem with the MS-UAM that Apple ships. The problem is with all Intel systems and PPC systems running version 10.4.6 or later. The older version from Microsoft supported changing the password and still works, however, there is no Microsoft version for Intel.

It seems the only workaround is the change the security options and use clear text authentication, but that's a bad idea as it's not particularly safe.

[Sharkus]

Thanks for the reply, handy to know I'm not alone and there are some potential workarounds for the issue.

I guess another solution would be to dump SFM and use Group Logic's ExtremeZ-IP product which probably would not have this issue as it would not be using the MS-UAM.