Lab Notes

A new knowledge base article has been posted on our support site, titled "Windows XP and Elektron on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Client". In a nutshell, Tiger (desktop version, Mac OS X Server is OK) does not create Windows passwords for user accounts by default — in fact, if you upgrade from Panther, any existing Windows passwords are wiped out. The only time Windows passwords are available on the desktop version of Tiger is when Windows Sharing is enabled and then only on user accounts that have been specifically enabled for Windows Sharing.

This affects Elektron for users logging in from Windows XP when Elektron is configured to use Mac OS X system accounts for user authentication. Without a Windows password available for these users, they won't be able to authenticate. The article describes how you can enable Windows Sharing to create Windows passwords for your users (and then disable Windows Sharing if you do not want to leave it running).

Interestingly, this new behavior in Tiger is not really new at all. This is how Windows passwords worked in Jaguar — no Windows Sharing, no Windows passwords. In Panther, Apple changed this behavior to always create Windows passwords regardless of the sharing settings.