while trying to migrate a scheduled task from a windows server 2003 machine to a 2008 server ran into a little issue. for some reason when I would create the task and try to change the user account to use, it would allow me to browse the network and select the account but when I try to save the task it would come up with the error “the specified account name is not valid”.

I was stumped for a few minutes, I searched on the net quickly and found a few articles talking about creating a task and then exporting it and modifying XML, or KB articles about hot fixes that correct this. So for the hell of it I tried to create the task without changing the user account. low and behold when I went to save it I got a prompt for user name and password. Where at that point I put in the User Account I wanted with the correct password. And it all saved with no errors. and the Task has all the correct settings and even shows the correct user account in the properties. Hope this might save some time for any other admins that run across this.