I've just set up a machine with a fresh Windows installed and put on boinc and made absolutely sure the password in the text file on the remote machine is exactly what I've entered into boinc tasks here but it keeps saying password in the status. Boinc toolbox is full of ticks.
I have several other machines set up and have never had this problem before
Workaround - use "find computers" - not sure why the initial problem was there.
The most likely cause is that the BOINC client did not restart.
the boinc client is running because I'm looking at the remote computer with remote utilities, and anyway it says "password". if it's not running it can't connect and displays this differently.