htaccess won't encrypt password - advice

I'm doing some volunteer work for a site that's hosted on a Windows box. I've never had trouble with htaccess on my Unix host, but for some reason when site owner tries to access the pw protected directory, he must type in the encrypted characters of the password, as opposed to the word that was encrypted. I told him that kinda defeats the purpose. Any ideas on why the encryption isn't working? Everything else seems to be working fine. I'd really appreciate some direction.

Thanks-
tam

tam: what version of apache are you running?

If his "readme" file is current.

I would suggest you upgrade to a newer version of apache. 1.39 is out now..as well as 2.0.. check apache's site for more information.. or are you running IIS?

--($:~)-- htpasswd --help
Usage:
htpasswd [-cmdps] passwordfile username
htpasswd -b[cmdps] passwordfile username password

htpasswd -n[mdps] username
htpasswd -nb[mdps] username password
-c Create a new file.
-n Don't update file; display results on stdout.
-m Force MD5 encryption of the password.
-d Force CRYPT encryption of the password (default).
-p Do not encrypt the password (plaintext).
-s Force SHA encryption of the password.
-b Use the password from the command line rather than prompting for it.
On Windows, TPF and NetWare systems the '-m' flag is used by default.
On all other systems, the '-p' flag will probably not work.

You sure he doesn't use the -p flag?

And of course, the file was wrong. It's 2.0 - I had a hunch. No IIS.
Thanks-
tam

I'm not sure about the -p flag.