How to prove a password reminder notice popped up?

[kennysarmy]

How do I prove to a parent of a student that she ignored her requests to change her password and thus is expired?

 

DC's are server 2008 R2 and clients are a mixture of XP and windows 7?

 

Will there be any logs on either the server or clients?

 

Cheers.

[plexer]

Once it's expired surely she would have been forced to change it on next logon and couldn't carry on until she had.

 

Ben

[enjay]

I would question whether you actually need to prove this, but...

 

I don't immediately see a way that you could prove that it appeared, but you could repeat it as a demonstration, to prove that it can happen and thus infer that it did happen.

[AngryTechnician]

I'm pretty sure there are no server logs. There might be something in the event log of a workstation that the student logged in to when the box popped up.

 

In all likelihood the student did what 90% of people do when a box pops up with an OK button - click the OK button without even thinking (let alone reading it). They probably genuinely do not remember seeing the message box. To be honest though, unless you have pastoral responsibilities as part of your job role, I would refer the parent to Form Tutor/HoY or SMT.

Edited May 14, 2012 by AngryTechnician

[pete]

There will be an event log of the "you can't log on until you've changed your password" but it'll be finding it that's the issue unless you're already shipping logs.

 

Look for 4471 with a result code of 0x17 (password has expired).

 

And an expired password simply means you need to change it when logging on, unless you're using a 3rd-party integration that doesn't support password changes (VLE?).

Edited May 14, 2012 by pete

[rad]

I also wonder why they are questioning you. Surely students need to learn to read everything. Afterall, what are they going to do in an exam or later in life? Someone wont be there to read everything out to them.

[FN-GM]

Once it's expired surely she would have been forced to change it on next logon and couldn't carry on until she had.

 

Ben

 

If your using another system that looks into AD this will will not always work. For example Moodle.

[kennysarmy]

If your using another system that looks into AD this will will not always work. For example Moodle.

 

And this might be the issue....

 

She ignored the warnings - then went home for the weekend and could nt access the VLE as her password had expired...

 

I just wanted to prove to myself really that the student DID ignore the warnings and that it's not true what her parent has intimated, that "X says she did not get any warnings about her password. It simply expired".....

[Jobos]

This might not work in your case as we don't use a VLE but I've set my schools to email users when their password is about to expire and keep a log of said emails.

[FN-GM]

Just a thought. Is there a way to force a user to change a password before the actual expiry date to avoid this issue?

 

Thanks

[witch]

TBH I can't see that it is your issue. The system is set up to act in a certain way, so you have to believe that it did. It would be very odd if it hadn't done it in this ONE case. I suppose you could set up a demonstration but you would have to shorten the time before the reminder (unless you managed to catch one) and this in itself means you have changed something. But you could just do this for hers to prove that the reminder does come up.

I'm sure ours are set up so that you HAVE to change the password - it doesnt just expire - can you change yours to that for future reference?

[enjay]

I just wanted to prove to myself really that the student DID ignore the warnings and that it's not true what her parent has intimated, that "X says she did not get any warnings about her password. It simply expired".....

 

Set your account to expire in a week and see what happens. If you get a countdown warning, then it is safe to assume that the pupil did too.

 

With W7, I don't think you get a big message in the middle of the screen, but a little notification icon down in the cr*p tray by the clock, so it could be that she didn't notice it (there is, of course, a difference between seeing something and noticing something!).

[enjay]

I'm sure ours are set up so that you HAVE to change the password - it doesnt just expire

That only works from within the network though. Let's say a student logs in at 9am. At 2pm, a timer is reached and the password is set to force a change. If the pupil then goes home, they will not be able to log in.

[plexer]

True but then the system doesn't just prompt them to change it just before it expires that length of time is configurable, I think, therefore they had notice to do so before it will have caused them a problem.

 

Ben

[FN-GM]

True but then the system doesn't just prompt them to change it just before it expires that length of time is configurable, I think, therefore they had notice to do so before it will have caused them a problem.

 

Ben

 

Do you know where that is. I did try looking for that but couldnt find it.

 

Thanks

[enjay]

Do you know where that is. I did try looking for that but couldnt find it.

We do it via Spec Ops "Password Policy", which is free. There is a costed version which has more functionality, but if you want basic complexity rules and forced changes, then the free one will do what you need.