Problem: "The user name or password is incorrect" if you try to connect to SBS 2003 based network share or Exchange via Outlook

 

Situation: there is a number of client computers in a local SBS 2003 based domain. Every computer but one is domain member and runs Windows XP SP3. All users have access to network share (via explorer) and mailboxes (via Outlook 2003/2010) on the SBS 2003 SP2 server in the domain.

Suddenly the only non-domain computers – a workgroup computer – gets no access to network share and to Exchange mailbox. The user gets repeating error message

"The user name or password is incorrect"

The same username/password pair succeeds on every other computer in the LAN.

The most popular problem is: the clock on the client computer and on the serve are not synchronized. In our case: somebody misconfigured client’s date/time setting the next month as current, so the date/time difference between client and server was 1 month.

After setting client’s date/time same as on the server the access to network shares and Exchange account via Outlook was restored immediately.

So, in case of same or similar error message

• check the date/time settings on the server
• check the date/time settings on the client computer
• compare and synchronize them if required

Enjoy!