Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Password list maintenance

0 helpful
3 replies

by mike o

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Hi all. Our school has a network of 70 or so Win98SE computers connected to a couple of NT 4.0 servers. We have about 250 users. Several of our students often forget their password, and when I change it on the server I must then track down their password lists and delete them from the various computers. (ie, delete the jdoe.pwl file from C:\Windows)

My question: is there a way to keep Windows from creating a password list? I don't figure we really need one except on admin machines using passworded screensavers.

Or, is there an easier way to go about this? I thought about a batch file erasing password lists, but the problem there is the kids keep having to enter passwords repeatedly with each login.

3 replies

by parbo

Disabled Password Caching (Windows 9x and NT)
Category: Security > System
Normally Windows caches a copy of the users password on the local system to allow for additional automation, this leads to a possible security threat on some systems. Disabling caching means the users passwords are not cached locally. This setting also removes the second Windows password screen and also remove the possibility of networks passwords to get out of sync.

Open your registry and find the key below.

Create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value, called 'DisablePwdCaching' and edit the value according to the settings below.

Exit your registry, you may need to restart or log out of Windows for the change to take effect.
(Default) REG_SZ (value not set)
DisablePwdCaching REG_DWORD 0x00000001 (1)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion...

Settings
Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersionPolicies\Network]
Value Name: DisablePwdCaching
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (0 = disabled, 1=enabled)

Hope this helps

This discussion is closed to new replies.