Logon password will expire in 5 days

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  1. Posts : 247
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)
       #1

    Logon password will expire in 5 days


    Hi,

    I've just noticed a fleeting reminder, in my system tray, that my logon password will expire in 5 days. This was under the wording (I think) of Windows Logon Reminder.

    It appeared in my non-admin account. I have another, admin account.

    I have never set Windows to make logon passwords expire. I have never experienced that under my previous install of the same OS, which lasted years. The advice I've been able to google up on the issue all relates to an option in Group Policy to make passwords never expire, but I don't have this, since I'm under Home Premium.

    I suspect this may be linked to the way I sysprepped my install, including the logon passwords to my user accounts. Maybe my system thinks I have Group Policy or I'm on a domain, which I'm not. This is a one-user, non-networked computer (except for the Internet).

    As a temporary measure, I made both accounts password-free. I also created two password reset "disks" on flash drives, one per account. I discovered, while doing this, that the relevant wizard says explicitely that you can create a password reset disk... with a blank password. Which I did, but what's the point ? Surely, when you have decided not to protect your account with a password, you don't need a password reset disk ?

    I've also seen a registry hack to correct this, which I'd like to avoid, if at all possible.

    Thanks !
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 71,975
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
       #2

    Hello Clairvaux, :)

    You can use OPTION TWO in the tutorial below to disable password expiration using an elevated command prompt instead.


    Password Expiration - Enable or Disable
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 247
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Thanks, Brink. Done and (hopefully) corrected ! :)

    However, just after I fired off my post, I noticed something else : I launched Outlook (of desktop Office 2003), and all the passwords of my mail accounts (which were saved in Outlook) had been wiped out ! What's going on there ?

    Surely, when you take off the password from your Windows user account, this is not supposed to propagate into Outlook ? I have done that repeatedly in the past, setting and unsetting passwords on Windows user accounts to experiment, and nothing of the sort happened.

    Also : while I still had a password on my Windows accounts, there was a password in my Windows Credentials Manager (Generic Credentials) for the systems' Administrator account. Now it's gone. Is that normal ?
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 71,975
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
       #4

    You're welcome.

    Did you use any type of utility program that could have cleared them?
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 247
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)
    Thread Starter
       #5

    No, at least I don't think so. I did experiment these days with Geek Uninstaller, which seemed to do strange things, but this happened right after I took the passwords away from my accounts. Outlook is set to retrieve my mail every 5 minutes, so I believe I would have been alerted before if it was related to something else.

    Unless, of course, there was a chain of events such as Unknown problem > Windows passwords problem > Outlook problem...

    Oh and by the way, looking at your tutorial about password expiration, I reckon that the worst that could have happened to me is to be forced to change passwords, not to be locked out of my computer ? (Contrary to what the Windows alert would have one thinking...)
    Last edited by Clairvaux; 07 Jan 2016 at 22:53. Reason: Added paragraph
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 71,975
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
       #6

    Yeah, you would have just needed to change your password if it expired.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 247
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)
    Thread Starter
       #7

    That's reassuring.

    Speaking of utilities... I also installed yesterday, or the day before, a strange beast named PC Hunter on the advice of a frequent contributor here, in order to do some troubleshooting... it comes with all sorts of warnings attached, and seems to be Chinese... I only copied some files with it for testing purposes... but...

    Could this password-mangling thing be malware-induced ? Get a warning that you might be locked out of your PC... remove passwords or change them... get all your mail accounts passwords wiped out... be forced to re-register them... anything fishy there ?
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 71,975
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
       #8

    It could be malware, but it sounds more like something may have cleared them instead.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 247
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)
    Thread Starter
       #9

    Thanks for the tip, my mail accounts are still responding and have not been hijacked... yet... I'm running a few deep scans just in case.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 247
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)
    Thread Starter
       #10

    OK, nothing found, except a few known Open Candies and false positives. Changed my main mail account password just in case.

    By the way, if you use the free version of Malwarebytes as I just did (and I suppose it's no different in the paid version), the scan menu says the Threat Scan is "the most comprehensive", and hints that the Custom Scan is to be used if you need to scan a few selected places only. That's wrong.

    The Custom Scan is far more comprehensive than the Threat scan (if you configure it to the max, obviously). In my particular configuration, the Threat Scan (default, recommended) took 10 to 15 minutes. The Custom Scan took almost 4 hours. Also, it found those Open Candy-loaded software installers, whereas the Threat Scan didn't.
      My Computer


 
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