bulk password reset

[Jonny_sims]

we have a number a users setup for adult education all with the same password so that all the adult ed teachers can log there students onto any account. however no one can remember the password as the person who looked after adult ed in the the school has left since last year.

my question is, is there any way to reset the password on all of these accounts in one go?

any and all help appreciated.

[FN-GM]

Yes in AD select the accounts you want to reset with a lasso box or hold in Ctrl and click the username. Once you have selected your users Right Click > Reset Password.

[Jonny_sims]

thanks for you suggestion, but there is no "reset password" option when more then one account is selected. this was my first thought.

[FN-GM]

Your right sorry mate I thought there was one there, I wonder if it has been put in Windows 2k8 I will check later.

[ShorehamGeek]

I've just been looking at this. If you have a Win2003 Domain controller, try typing the command dsquery in a command prompt.

If it works - it should list the first 100 users in AD.

If so, try:
dsquery user -name *somename*

This will return all the users that have somename in their username (substitute as required)

Or try:
dsquery user -des *somedescription*

This will return all the users that have somedescription in their AD description

If you can get either of these to work you can then pipe the results to dsmod:
dsquery user -des *somedescription* | dsmod user -pwd Somepassword

This will change all the accounts having somedescription to have the password Somepassword.

Hope this helps.

PS - if the dsquery command doesn't work, none of this will work.

[plexer]

How about:

http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~mikem/activeman/index.html

Ben

[Jonny_sims]

thanks @ShorehamGeek that worked perfectly

[ShorehamGeek]

Glad to hear it. I've just discovered these tools - what perfect timing!

[SpuffMonkey]

You could always do it the quick and dirty way - grab the usernames into an XL spreadsheet, then add "net user" before the usernames and the new password after, so you end up with

net user <username1> <new_password>
net user <username2> <new_password> etc

- export as text, change the .txt to a .bat and run it on the DC - jobs a good un.

To run it on a workstation - think you have to add a "/<domainname>" at the end.

[TheScarfedOne]

Wisesoft has a load of free tools too...

[ihaveaproblem]

Vote for wisesoft tools
WiseSoft - Resources for IT Professionals

Can do bulk password reset and much more! Work well and easy to use and saves you messing around with command lines