Protected directories usernames problem

[allanm]

I am currently trying to move a "protected directory" from another manually managed site to one running under Plesk 8.3
On the old server, we use standard htaccess to control user access with the usernames the users email address. This works well but with Plesk, it objects to an invalid character if the username contains "@". Is there any way around this.

Also, we currently have a quite large .htaccess password file in the form:-
<username>:<encrypted password>

Is there any way we can use this rather than having to tediously re-enter all the users one at a time and the passwords twice?

Thanks, Allanm