Windows 10 – Unable to change domain password when password has expired and computer is locked

windows 10

We have recently migrated over to Windows 10 Pro Version 1511. Prior to that we were on Windows 7 Pro.

We have fast user switching disabled for all computers by group policy in our domain. It is quite common that users don't change their password even though they are given password expiration notice.

On Windows 7 clients when a domain users account password had expired after they had logged in and the computer gets locked (for lunch or they were idle) they came back to login and they were able to change the password as they had a switch user option as shown below.

1
(source: imgsafe.org)

However, in Windows 10 when the same situation happens we get the following prompt:

"Your password has expired. To set a new password, select OK, select Switch user, re-enter your current password, then follow the prompts on the screen.

So we click ok and now there is no longer a switch user option?

2
(source: imgsafe.org)

Has anyone come across this yet? Wonder if this is a bug in Windows 10 or a limitation of some kind?

Best Answer

The switch user option is likely disabled in your environment, for security reasons.

  1. Have the customer log onto another computer.
  2. Let whoever does account management in your organization do their job and reset the user's password. It is not a workaround, it the simplest solution.
  3. Also, the customer probably will not be able to unlock their session, and will probably have to restart the computer anyway, so that's another way.

As for allowing customers to change their own passwords, they already can. However, you need to ensure that they get ample warning of account expiration. If they have to click past a warning for two weeks to get into their account, they have no one to blame but themselves for the inconvenience of contacting the service desk to get a password reset.

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