Manually setting password on account creation

Hi,

I'm trying to set the user's password during account creation, rather than accepting Drupal's randomized starter password. I'm doing this in hook_user / insert, and have tried everything I can think of, to no avail:

• db_query( "UPDATE users SET pass = MD5('new password') WHERE uid = " . $user->uid );
• $edit['pass'] = "new password";
• $user['pass'] = "new password"; $edit['pass'] = NULL;
• user_save($user, array('pass' => MD5('new password')));

Help!

Thanks,
Jeff Bellsey