This is found in Chp 11 p319. Creating htaccess and htpasswd files.

In DOS prompt, I typed C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\bin>
htpasswd users james
The message returned: Automatically using MD5 format.
htpasswd: cannot modify file users; use '-c' to create it

Does anyone encounter this problem and how to solve it?

Thanks ;)

Try using the -c command line switch, like so:

htpasswd -c users james

Thanks! It works.

However, my attempt to use htaccess does not work as intended.

I created a htaccess file, labeled it as "a.htaccess" (It has to have a name, right?)

The content of the file is as follows:

AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile c:\website\test
AuthName "Restricted"
<LIMIT GET POST>
require valid-user
</LIMIT>

So where does it go wrong? Please help! Thanks ;)

I had the same problem. Windows does not seem to allow you to create a file called ".htaccess". I still don not know how to work around it.

I can't remember off the top of my head the limitations Windows places on file names on creation... but you *can* rename that file to .htaccess... as follows:

Open a Command Prompt/DOS Window
Go to the directory with your a.htaccess (or whatever) file
issue the following command: ren a.htaccess ".htaccess"

The file should then be renamed properly. (Worked on XP, should work in 2k, unsure about anything previous)

Yap, it worked.
Thanks
Christian
Note: Can't overstimate the power of DOS

It should also be noted, using quotes works in windows dialog boxes as well. When saving your file for the first time in your editor of choice, just put quotes around the filename ( ".htaccess" ) and it should work fine.