Tools for multiple password policies on 2003 DC?

[PrimaryTech]

Hi All,

I'm looking into our school's password policy and I want to set AD policies for staff and some KS2 classes so that their password expires / must be a certain length etc.

A bit of research has told me that Windows Server 2000 / 2003 only allows 1 password policy, defined in the default domain policy. I can't use it as I don't think our KS1 pupils will cope with changing their PW every 30 days, it not being the same as the last 10 and being complex

 

Does anyone know any good third party tools for multiple password policies, I've had a look at the Specops solution but I think it might be a tad expensive.

[kaphc]

Hi, we had the same issue when trying to enforce strict password policies for staff but not for pupils. I looked at Specops as well, they do a basic version which might be more cost effective. We didn't go for this in the end though, as we are due to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 later this year, where password policies can be set by group rather than for the whole domain. You don't have an upgrade pending soon do you??

[john]

One sort of nearly working solution could be to set the policy you want, and set the KS1 pupils passwords to never expire, then they won't need to keep changing them. Not perfect but a sort of way around it.