Lazybit

Sometimes it happens that you type a password, the system tells you it's wrong, but you are absolutely sure it is not, and that you know what you're doing.

The problem is that what you think you type is not always what gets typed.

Here is a checklist you should go through, to make sure you've got everything covered; some items may sound trivial, but you should take them seriously:

• CapsLock is pressed
  • or the LED of the keyboard is broken and you can't see that the button is pressed
  • or maybe there is a program that artificially changes the state of the LED
• Keyboard layout - you think you're typing Latin characters, but are you?
  • check if another language is currently set as the default one
  • don't be fooled by languages that use the same character sets - the German "qwertz" and the English "qwerty" will appear identical, until you press 'y' or 'z'
  • what if you're using the same language but with a different layout? (ex: "English - Dvorak" and "English - Qwerty" will both look as "EN" in the language bar)
• Keyboard mechanics
  • the Shift button sometimes presses itself
  • someone changed the buttons on the keyboard so it appears that you press on 'A' but a 'D' is typed instead

The optimal solution

If everything fails, or you are not skilled enough to check the system settings and the keyboard's internals, open up Notepad, and type your password.

Once you see that what you typed is what you thought you typed, use copy/paste to transfer the password into the entry box.

This will allow you to deal with every single item in the checklist.

What if it is still not accepted?

If you've made sure that the password is typed correctly, but the system still won't accept it, it is possible that the administrator changed it (so it's an issue on their end, not on your's).

Contact the person who controls the system you are logging on to, and ask them whether the password was changed, reset, or de-activated.