Help help help 
My fiance’ uses Win XP Pro (SP2) on his laptop for work. It IS on a domain. I don’t have a lot of XP experience so Im coming to you guys for help 
TOday when he booted up its telling him his Windows Password is going to expire in 12 days. Ive looked high and low and I cannot find where (if there is a place) to change this so that he does not have to keep changing his password.
pleassssssse help lol
connie
control panel > user accounts to change the password
start > run > gpedit.msc to change the group/user policies on a XP system, but be carefull. Changes made there can be very powerfull !!
we don’t want to have to keep changing the password though. Is that something with XP that we cannot avoid?
start > run > gpedit.msc to change the group/user policies on a XP system, but be carefull. Changes made there can be very powerfull !!
yes, ive already discovered how powerful they can be… hense the reason i came to you guys for help I guess what Im asking is this: Are passwords expiring something that is a part of XP that you cannot get around? OR… can that be changed someplace by using gpedit.msc as you mentioned above?
You can change the password policy with gpedit.msc
Also XP’s build in help and support tells you how to do so.
As Eddy said you can change things with gpedit, I think that the default number of days is 90 before windows warns/suggests you should change your password. I’m not sure if you don’t change it I don’t know if it blocks access or is just a nag screen.
So it is possible to increase the number, strangely enough, if you set it to 0 (zero), it never askes you again.
But as has been said, it can seriously ruin your day.
Eddy, For some reason I couldnt find it in the help/support section : but given I was trying to help him and let him back to do his work, I probably didnt dig deep enough. THank you for giving me just enough to lead me in the right direction I kinda prefer it that way… I learn more.
David… yeppers… he has twice now fouled things up and now realizes that its much easier to “break” XP then it was 98 lol
So that Im understanding correctly… before I came back to read again here I figured I would change it to 0 … doing ONLY that will be safe… correct? I’ll admit to being abit afraid of XP where Ill do anything with 98 and KNOW I can correct it.
okay groan… I logged in as Administrator… used GPEdit… found the place to change it and it is greyed out so I can’t ??? ??? ???
Are you sure you are logged in as administrator and not as user with admin rights? These are namely two different things. Look HERE to see how to login as administrator.
And HERE is a good start to learn about gpedit.
You can check Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy and double click on the entry you would like to change. See image
David, before seeing your message above I found another way , that hopefully will not mess up something else … and was able to tell it “password never expires” for his login name. Rebooted and the annoying message went away.
David… for kicks I just logged in as Administrator once again… and went in where you just showed me and it will NOT allow me to change those settings… either there nor in Gpedit.
The change I made appears to be working … so far 
Weird or what, I would have thought as the administrator you would have been able to do it from Administrative Tools.
Where was this other place that you mentioned you were able to make the changes?
This used to happen to me aswell damn annoying, i think if u dont set an password while installing xp you get this or something.
David… He has taken the laptop with him on a business trip, and as our two systems here in the house have Win98 SE on them, I cannot look to tell you at the moment. My knowledge of XP is pretty weak sigh so I cannot remember exactly where but it was in Control Panel in Users I believe and after meandering around I managed to find a place where I was able to check a box starting “password never expires” . When he returns I’ll look again on his laptop and let you know…
David,
Heres the info on where I was able to fix that password prob:
Login to the computer as Administrator. Go into Control Panel, then User Accounts. Highlight the account you need to fix.
click Advanced Tab at top
Under Advanced user management click the Advanced button
double click Users Folder
Hightlight the account you need to fix on the right
double click
check “password never expires”
click OK
File - EXIT
click OK
Close control panel
reboot computer
I had to retrace my steps back into there this evening as he wound up locking himself out of the computer. One of our desktop computers is networked to it, and we had a keyboard act up here… in logging onto the desktop the password was being put in wrong do to the keyboard being screwed up… it wound up locking his account out of the laptop.
If that happens you can go into the same place as Administrator and uncheck “Account is disabled”
: :
Well, it worked. I still do not know why I cannot fix it the other way… but all the options were greyed out when I went in there.
Thanks,
My curiosity is more to do with, the answer may help others with a similar problem in the future (they may find it with the search function).