Windows logon behavior if your user name contains characters that have accents or other diacritical marks (839515)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
  • Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional

INTRODUCTION

This article discusses logon behavior that occurs on computers that are running Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP, and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 if your user name contains characters that have accents or other diacritical marks.

MORE INFORMATION

If your user name in the Active Directory directory service contains one or more characters that have accents or other diacritical marks, you may find that you do not have to use the diacritical mark as you type your user name to log on to Windows. You can log on by using the simple form of the character or characters. For example, if your user name in Active Directory is jésush, you can type jesush in the User name box in the Log On to Windows dialog box to log on to Windows.

This behavior occurs so that in situations when you have to log on to Windows from a computer where the preferred keyboard mapping is not installed, you can still log on to Windows by using your user name without the diacritical marks.

The USERNAME variable in Windows is set to use the exact user name that you type in the User name box in the Log on to Windows dialog box. If you log on and you do not type the diacritical marks that are contained in your user name, the USERNAME variable also does not contain the diacritical marks in your user name. Therefore, the value of the USERNAME variable is different from the user name that is stored in Active Directory. To work around this behavior, log on to Windows by typing your user name in user principal name (UPN) format. To do this, type the following in the User name box, where UserName is your user name and DomainName is the name of the domain:

UserName@DomainName.com

REFERENCES

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

273633 USERNAME environment variable may differ from actual user name

For additional information about diacritical marks, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

98999 Diacritical marks described and explained

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:6/3/2004
Keywords:kbinfo kbenv KB839515 kbAudITPRO kbAudEndUser
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