I was talking to someone on the phone. They were at a server (NT 4.0 sp4 pdc, small domain in a small private LAN). She claims that whan at the server she tries to log on as Administrator and gets "Account locked out" message. I am aware of the many utilities for cracking passwords and have as a matter of fact cracked 2 with a Linux utility I have but that's not the issue. My main question is: How can the Administrator account be getting that message? I thought this was impossible to keep the local admin account of the server off. Just to make double sure, I tried to replicate the problem so on a practice server, same specs same installed options I set the policies so that All users would be locked out after 3 tries and duration would be forever. I then purposely and continually put in the wrong password. Not once did I get a locked out message. Once I did log on though and went to Administrator properties Locked out was checked but it appears that this would probably only apply when trying to log on accross the network but will still you allow to logon locally to the server-which is what I thought should be the case and is what happened. (Would be pretty weak if Joe Smo could just type in Administrator, put in 3 bad passwords and ruin any chance of accessing administrator even locally). I even tried to disable the account in user manager and it wouldn't allow me to do that either. So why is she getting this message? She says she is indeed trying to logon directly from the server. Any ideas. Note: Nothing special was added. The administrator account was not renamed. No NOVELL. Thanks in advance, D PS. One of MS's own MCSE recommended I purchase a password hack utility. Ummm that wasn't the question I was asking as I even stated to her I have 2 Linux based crack utilities that I have successfully used in practice b4. Once again HOW DID THE ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT GET LOCKED OUT LOCAL TO THE SERVER?

Is she at the servers console?

the account can be diasbled in user manager

No she is at the actual server. And NO the administrator account local to that server cannot be locked out nor disabled. I really don't think the username was renamed either. Don't feel bad, have MS stumped on this one as well.