• Microsoft Rant

    From Sylvia Else@21:1/5 to All on Fri Oct 28 12:11:36 2022
    Windows 10 has expired the password on the user I created specifically
    for the purpose of doing backups.

    I have never seen a password expire on Windows before. Why would
    Microsoft do such a thing? How am I ever meant to set up and test
    anything if Microsoft lays traps like this.

    Yes, I know I could ditch Windows, and in truth I'm sorely tempted, but
    this is needed to support family members who are unlikely to respond
    favourably to a suggestion that they use Linux.

    It's possible that the expiry is a function of how I created this user,
    (I used net user on the command line) but at the moment I'm unable to
    use the "standard" Windows 10 way to create local users because
    "Something went wrong" after I indicated that this user does not have
    Microsoft account.

    Sylvia (becoming increasingly bald).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Marco Moock@21:1/5 to All on Fri Oct 28 09:00:03 2022
    Am 28.10.2022 schrieb Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid>:

    I have never seen a password expire on Windows before.

    It is possible for a long time, especially companies use it.
    You can change the settings in gpedit.msc IIRC.

    Why would Microsoft do such a thing? How am I ever meant to set up and test anything if Microsoft lays traps like this.

    Do you have a company-administrated machine connected to AD?
    Maybe the admins there set that option.

    It's possible that the expiry is a function of how I created this
    user, (I used net user on the command line) but at the moment I'm
    unable to use the "standard" Windows 10 way to create local users
    because "Something went wrong" after I indicated that this user does
    not have Microsoft account.

    Is it Windows 10 Home?
    MS made it difficult to create local users there. Disconnect from the
    internet and try it in that state.

    Does control userpasswords2 work?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Sylvia Else@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Fri Oct 28 21:59:10 2022
    On 28-Oct-22 6:00 pm, Marco Moock wrote:
    Am 28.10.2022 schrieb Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid>:

    I have never seen a password expire on Windows before.

    It is possible for a long time, especially companies use it.
    You can change the settings in gpedit.msc IIRC.

    Why would Microsoft do such a thing? How am I ever meant to set up and test >> anything if Microsoft lays traps like this.

    Do you have a company-administrated machine connected to AD?
    Maybe the admins there set that option.

    It's possible that the expiry is a function of how I created this
    user, (I used net user on the command line) but at the moment I'm
    unable to use the "standard" Windows 10 way to create local users
    because "Something went wrong" after I indicated that this user does
    not have Microsoft account.

    Is it Windows 10 Home?
    MS made it difficult to create local users there. Disconnect from the internet and try it in that state.

    Does control userpasswords2 work?


    "Something went wrong" was fixed by a reboot. How many people remember
    when the standard fix was "reinstall Windows"?

    Turns out I can use PowerShell to create a local user whose password
    does not expire.

    But the underlying problem of MS laying traps remains.

    Sylvia.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Marco Moock@21:1/5 to All on Fri Oct 28 13:10:29 2022
    Am 28.10.2022 schrieb Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid>:

    But the underlying problem of MS laying traps remains.

    I don't have a windows system to test, but is a local user with
    expiring password the default for a normal Win 10 installation?
    At least in older versions it wasn't.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Fri Oct 28 16:07:31 2022
    Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
    Am 28.10.2022 schrieb Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid>:

    But the underlying problem of MS laying traps remains.

    I don't have a windows system to test, but is a local user with
    expiring password the default for a normal Win 10 installation?
    At least in older versions it wasn't.

    Windows has never set passwords to expire by default, AFAIK. My personal machines have never expired their user accounts. The only place I see passwords expire is on machines at work, where a group policy in Active Directory forces new passwords every once in a while for most users.

    --
    _/_
    / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
    (IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
    \_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Sylvia Else@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Sat Oct 29 08:44:02 2022
    On 28-Oct-22 10:10 pm, Marco Moock wrote:
    Am 28.10.2022 schrieb Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid>:

    But the underlying problem of MS laying traps remains.

    I don't have a windows system to test, but is a local user with
    expiring password the default for a normal Win 10 installation?
    At least in older versions it wasn't.


    After further testing, it appears to be specific to using the command
    line NET USER command to create the user. That command creates a user
    with an expiring password, and has no option to disable that. The method
    using PowerShell creates a user with an expiring password by default,
    but has an option to disable the expiry.

    Fairly typical of Windows to be providing multiple different ways of
    performing the same underlying function, but which are not quite the same.

    Sylvia.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bob Eager@21:1/5 to Sylvia Else on Fri Oct 28 23:39:47 2022
    On Sat, 29 Oct 2022 08:44:02 +1100, Sylvia Else wrote:

    On 28-Oct-22 10:10 pm, Marco Moock wrote:
    Am 28.10.2022 schrieb Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid>:

    But the underlying problem of MS laying traps remains.

    I don't have a windows system to test, but is a local user with
    expiring password the default for a normal Win 10 installation?
    At least in older versions it wasn't.


    After further testing, it appears to be specific to using the command
    line NET USER command to create the user. That command creates a user
    with an expiring password, and has no option to disable that. The method using PowerShell creates a user with an expiring password by default,
    but has an option to disable the expiry.

    The non Powershell command:

    NET ACCOUNTS /MAXPWAGE:UNLIMITED

    removes password aging from all users.

    --
    Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

    Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
    http://www.mirrorservice.org

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Sylvia Else@21:1/5 to Bob Eager on Sat Oct 29 15:14:14 2022
    On 29-Oct-22 10:39 am, Bob Eager wrote:
    On Sat, 29 Oct 2022 08:44:02 +1100, Sylvia Else wrote:

    On 28-Oct-22 10:10 pm, Marco Moock wrote:
    Am 28.10.2022 schrieb Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid>:

    But the underlying problem of MS laying traps remains.

    I don't have a windows system to test, but is a local user with
    expiring password the default for a normal Win 10 installation?
    At least in older versions it wasn't.


    After further testing, it appears to be specific to using the command
    line NET USER command to create the user. That command creates a user
    with an expiring password, and has no option to disable that. The method
    using PowerShell creates a user with an expiring password by default,
    but has an option to disable the expiry.

    The non Powershell command:

    NET ACCOUNTS /MAXPWAGE:UNLIMITED

    removes password aging from all users.


    So it does. Rather counter-intuitive. Thanks for that

    Sylvia

    [I thought I posted this already, but seems not].

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Anssi Saari@21:1/5 to Sylvia Else on Mon Oct 31 17:25:28 2022
    Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> writes:

    "Something went wrong" was fixed by a reboot. How many people remember
    when the standard fix was "reinstall Windows"?

    It's still the standard fix when things get broken enough. I remember I installed Windows 98 from scratch when Windows 95 could no longer
    uninstall any device in the device manager. And that was the fix even
    back then for misbehaving hardware.

    Funny enough, last year I had to reinstall Windows 10 for the same
    reason. I tried to migrate my old installation to new HW and it didn't
    work that well, uninstalling drivers hung which makes Windows 10 pretty
    much dead, at least if you want to change the underlying HW. When I went
    back to my old system, much to my surprise I noticed the problem was
    already present there too. Oh well, that Windows 10 installation was
    originally a Windows 7 installation from around 2010.

    So, reinstalling is still the fix, just don't have to do it so often.

    Turns out I can use PowerShell to create a local user whose password
    does not expire.

    Curious thing, I don't think I've ever had a password expire in my home
    Windows computers, 7, 10, 11 variants, usually Pro. No AD.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)