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Change Password Policy Requirement Text

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by toreador 1 view

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I have instituted a hardened password policy at a company that previously had none. The users are having a hard time comprehending the policy requirements. I have been asked if it is possible to change the AD popup that states ?Windows cannot complete the password change for ?user? because: The password does not meet the password policy requirements. Check the minimum password length, password complexity and password history requirements.
I would like to change this to list the new requirements: Passwords must be at least 7 characters, must not contain your name or user name and must contain at least three of four classes;
1. Upper case
2. Lower case
3. Numbers
4. Special characters

Any suggestions?

4 replies

by joseph moore

The short answer is no.
I have done research on this for NT4.0, and the only way to do this is to make your own PASSFILT.DLL file.
The complexity is on Win2K by default, so this DLL file is in control, and the warning text your users see is in the DLL. It is not in the Registry.

To change the text, you would have to make your own DLL and have Windows run this.
How you do this, I have no idea!

I have just had to explain the text to my users, and yes, they still have problems.

I wish I had a good solution for you, but I don't know of one. Just be patient with your users; that's what I do.

Here is a Technet article on this:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=161990

hope this helps

by toreador

Thanks. I had read the KB article already but was hoping someone had a better suggestion or had written the dll already

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