Solving the system error 1326 mystery in “net use”

In IT world, there are two types of errors you have to cope with: the ones you can trust, and the ones you shouldn’t.

Sometimes it’s very obvious that the returning error code is not correct. However, when you try to map a network drive using net use, and you get the following error, you wouldn’t suspect anything else than a mistyped password:

System Error 1326 has occurred
Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.

Still, it was a false message. I got on the right track when I realized the system had been a victim of some viruses and malware in the past week.
Apparently the system time was modified by one of the viruses. Instead of 2012, the year was 2009 on the system. Enough reason for a Windows 2008 server to refuse the drive mapping. Or was it the WinPE client that prevented itself from connecting?

In any case, the Login failure message was pretty misleading for a time sync problem 🙂

For your reference, the command I used to connect, was the following:

net use z: \\itexperience-dc1\Downloads /USER:itexperience\administrator P@ssw0rd

I tested the same situation on a Windows 7 system, and no problem occurred. Probably this error only occurs on older systems.