XP password expiration notice. A virus?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Papa
  • Start date Start date
P

Papa

I have had XP Pro installed since last September. Yesterday at the end of
the bootup I received a message that said that "my password would expire in
14 more days, and do I want to set up a new password now" (or words to that
effect). This has never happened before.

I don't want or need an XP password, so I clicked YES and just hit return
for the old password, the new password, and the confirmation for the new
password.

I am hoping that I do not get this reminder again. Is this reminder normal,
or is it a virus?

In case this is a virus, I run updated versions of AVG and AdAware almost
daily - and they did not catch it (or maybe AdAware did, because it caught 7
items shortly afterwards).

Thanks for your responses.
 
1. Go to Start > Run and in the Open: box type control userpasswords2
2. Select the Advanced tab in the User Accounts window
3. Press the Advanced button below the Advanced user management header
4. Select Users in the Local Users and Groups
5. In the right pane, right-click the user name for which you want to change the
setting, and select Properties
6. On the General tab, check Password never expires
7. Click Apply and OK (all the way out)
 
I found the answer, and no, it is not a virus.. Thanks to Neil J. Rubenking
for his internet contribution on the subject. Here is his answer:

"Windows XP may notify you at log-on that your password will expire in a
number of days and ask whether you want to change it now. This behavior can
start months after your initial installation of Windows XP. Its purpose is
to help enforce password policies in a business environment, but if you
don't need that enforcement, it can be very annoying.

To turn off the warning, go to the Control Panel and launch the
Administrative Tools. If you happen to be using the Category view, look
under Performance and Maintenance. Next, launch the Local Security Policy
applet. In the left tree, double-click on Account Policies and then select
Password Policy. Find the item titled Maximum Password Age in the right-hand
pane and double-click on it. If you set this value to 0, your passwords will
never expire." END of QUOTE

For some reason I was unable to just click on the Administrative Tools icon
in the Control Panel. When I did, nothing happened. So I clicked on Start /
All Programs / Administrative Tools / Local Security Policy / Account
Policies / Password Policy. Then, as Mr. Rubenking suggested, I found the
item titled Maximum Password Age in the right-hand pane, double-clicked on
it, and then set the value to 0. As Mr. Rubenking said, doing this causes
your passwords to never expire again. By the way, the original value for
Maximum Password Age on my machine was 42 days.

Now I'll have to figure out why nothing happens when I click on the
Administrative Tools icon in the Control Panel.
 
Thank you very much. Just before you posted, I tried another method (see my
second post in this thread), and I hope it does the same thing you
suggested - because when I went to where you suggested, the "Password Never
Expires" option was already checked.
 
That's because you've already checked it via another method.
The main thing is, the never expire has been checked.
 
Thanks again. I just wasn't sure that it was the method I used that caused
that option to be checked - because I didn't actually see the option with
the little square box to the left of it when I went through the process. All
I saw at that time was the "Maximum Password Age" and a corresponding value,
42, which I changed to 0.
 
Just to add a little more info, I reset "Maximum Password Age" to 42 by
using the system restore function. Then I rebooted and checked the "Password
Never Expires" option and it was STILL checked. So the 2 different
procedures seem to conflict somehow. What a head-scratcher!
 
Back
Top