How to Change or Stop Password Expiration in Vista
INFO: This normally only applies to the
Vista Business and
Vista Ultimate versions. By default, Vista is set up with passwords which will expire after 42 days. 14 days in advance, Vista will start warning you of this fact.
NOTE: You must do this from within a Administrator account or use Run as administrator. WARNING: If you have this user account setup to logon automatically and change or remove the password, then be sure
to change or remove it here to. See:
How to Logon Automatically at Startup in Vista RELATED LINKS: 1. How to Manage Stored User Names and Passwords in Vista 2. How to Enable or Disable Secure Logon in Vista 3. How to Make Vista Require a Username and Password at Logon 4. How to Display Information About Previous Logons During User Logon in Vista 5. How to Logon Automatically at Startup in Vista 6. How to Remove a Password from a User Account in Vista 7. How to Create a Password Reset Disk in Vista 8. How to Reset a User Account Password in Vista 9. How to Create a Password for a User Account in Vista METHOD ONE: Through Local Security Policy : NOTE: Vista Home Basic and Home Premium does not have this feature. See METHOD THREE below for these versions. 1. Open the Start Menu.
2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type
secpol.msc and press
Enter.
OR 1. Open the Control Panel. (Classic Vew)
2. Click on the
Administrative Tools icon and click on
Local Security Policy.
NOTE: This is also in the Start Menu if selected in Customize. See: How to Customize the Start Menu in Vista 3. Click
Continue for UAC prompt.
4. In the left pane, under
Security Settings, click the little arrow next to
Account Policies to drop down and view the folder
options. (See screenshot below)
5. Click on the
Password Policy folder.
6. In the right pane, right click on
Maximum password age and click
Properties.
Password_Policy.jpg 7. To Stop Password Expiration -
A) Type
0 (number zero) and click
OK. (See screenshots below)
8. To Change the Password Expiration Date -
A) Type in a number between
1 and
999 days between expirations.
NOTE: If you would like to change the other options, then just right click them and click Properties. Click the Explain tab to see what it is for and how to set it. Max_Properties.jpgMax_Explain.jpg METHOD TWO: Through Local Users and Groups : NOTE: Vista Home Basic and Home Premium does not have this feature. See METHOD THREE below for these versions. OPTION ONE: 1. Open the Start Menu.
2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type
netplwiz and press
Enter.
3. Click
Continue button for UAC prompt.
4. Click on the
Advanced tab. (See screenshot below)
5. Go to step 4 below in
OPTION TWO.
User_Accounts.jpg OPTION TWO: 1. Open the Start Menu.
2. In white line (Start Search) area, type
lusrmgr.msc and press
Enter.
3. Click
Continue for the UAC prompt.
4. In the left pane, click on
Users. (See screenshot below)
5. In the right pane, right click on the
user account and click
Properties.
lusrmgr.jpg 6. To Stop Password Expiration -
A) Check
Password never expires. (See screenshot below)
7. To Change the Password Expiration Date -
A) Check one of the other options you want to apply.
8. Click
OK.
Properties.jpg 9. Close the
lusrmgr window.
METHOD THREE: Through a Elevated Command Prompt : NOTE: You can do this one in all versions of Vista. 1. Open the Start Menu.
2. Click on
All Programs and
Accessories.
3. Right click on
Command Prompt and click
Run as administrator.
A) Go to step 4 below.
OR 1. Open the Start Menu.
2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type
cmd 3. Right click
cmd (at top) and click
Run as administrator. (See screenshot below)
cmd_Start_Menu.jpg 4. To Stop Password Expiration -
A) Type net
accounts /maxpwage:unlimited and press
Enter. (See screenshot below)
B) Close the command prompt window when you get the
The command completed successfully message.
Unlimited_CMD.jpg 5. To Change the Password Expiration Date-
A) Type net
accounts /maxpwage:(1-999) and press
Enter. (See screenshot below)
EXAMPLE: To change it back to the default 42 days, you would type:
net accounts /maxpwage:42 NOTE: Change it to whatever you want between 1 to 999 days before password expiration.
B) Close the command prompt window when you get the
The command completed successfully message.
Change_CMD.jpg
That's it,
Shawn