Cannot Use "Add Members to a Group" If User Name Includes a Slash Character (270137)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional

This article was previously published under Q270137

SYMPTOMS

The Active Directory Users snap-in in Microsoft Management Console (MMC) does not add a member to a group if the user name includes a slash character (/). Therefore, creating a user with a slash character in the display name prevents that user from being added to groups by right-clicking the user name and then clicking Add members to a group. You receive the following error message:

Active Directory

Object Name FS. Smith\/US cannot be added to group Administrators because:

The specified user does not exist.

CAUSE

The Add members to a group command does not succeed because it calls a function that expects an escape-distinguished name (that is, special characters preceded by a backslash), but uses a non-escape-distinguished name (a slash that is not preceded by a backslash).

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

260910 How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack

The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

   Date        Time    Version        Size     File name
   -------------------------------------------------------
   08/11/2000  08:34a  5.0.2195.2103  459,536  Dsadmin.dll

WORKAROUND

There are two workarounds:

Right-click the user, click Properties, and then click Member Of.
Click the target group, click Properties, and then click Members.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 2.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about how to install Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 hotfixes at the same time, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

249149 Installing Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Hotfixes

Modification Type:	Minor	Last Reviewed:	9/23/2005
Keywords:	kbHotfixServer kbQFE kbbug kbfix kbWin2000PreSP2Fix KB270137