Error 59 When Changing Password with NET PASSWORD Command (237433)

SYMPTOMS

If you use the NET PASSWORD command to change your password on your Microsoft Windows 95/98 client computer, you may receive the following error message:

Error 59: An unexpected network error has occurred. Quit all running programs, restart your computer, and then try again. If the problem persists, contact your network administrator.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs if the client does not contact the primary domain controller (PDC). When the NET PASSWORD command is used on a Windows 95/98 computer, the computer incorrectly attempts to resolve a NetBIOS domainname[1D] entry, rather than the appropriate domainname[1B] entry.

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, change the syntax of the NET PASSWORD command. For example, at a command prompt type the following command

net password \\servername username oldpassword newpassword

where servername is the name of the PDC.

NOTE: Normally, the following example is the correct syntax for this command:

net password /domain:domainname username oldpassword newpassword

However, this command syntax only queries for the domainname[1D] entry.

MORE INFORMATION

Clients must contact the PDC to change a password. The most common problem that occurs when you attempt to change your password is that the name of the PDC is incorrectly resolved. This is usually done with a query for the domainname[1B] entry, and is often unsuccessful if the PDC is not on the same subnet as the client and an Lmhosts file or Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) server is not correctly implemented. However, this problem usually results in an error message similar to the following example:

The domain controller for this domain cannot be found.

If you receive an error message similar to this example, please search the Microsoft Knowledge Base for articles relevant to the problem.

The problem described in this article is slightly different. Because any domain controller can register the domainname[1D] entry, it is likely that a BDC will respond to the Windows 95/98 client query. The client's attempt to change the password through the BDC is unsuccessful and the error message is displayed.

Because the most commonly used way to change a password is using the Passwords tool in Control Panel, the behavior described in this article is not a common occurrence. However, there are instances when the Password tool is not an option, as described in the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

154809 Error Changing Password with Multiple Network User Names