How to Change Your Password

How to log in to the Network and change your password

To change your password from a default provisioned password or previous password that has expired please read and follow the steps outlined below:
At the log in prompt supply your user name for your network account. It is usually your first and last name combined up to a maximum of 18 characters in length as per the example. 

Joe Doe's account would be joedoe please note user names are not case sensitive but passwords are.

After entering your network user name enter your password as illustrated below and then click on the OK button.
A dialog box will appear if your password has expired explaining this and that you have a limited number of times before you must change your password.

By clicking yes you will proceed to the change password dialog box shown in the next image.  Selecting No will continue to log you in normally and to access the computer normally but you will be prompted to change your password the next time you login.

Enter your new password in the New Password field and confirm your new password in the Retype Password field to ensure they are consistent.  (Note please follow the guidelines outlined in the Administrators Message box in the image and the guidelines in the following section Creating strong passwords with complex rules.  Once you have correctly entered your new password click ok and you will proceed to the desktop and access the computer normally.

How to create a strong password

To change your password to meet Microsoft complexity rules users must create strong passwords that meet the following minimum requirements:

• Passwords cannot contain the user’s account name or parts of the user’s full name that exceed two consecutive characters.
• Passwords must be at least eight characters in length.
• Passwords must contain characters from three of the following four categories:
• English uppercase characters (A through Z).
• English lowercase characters (a through z).
• Base 10 digits (0 through 9).
• Non-alphabetic characters (for example, !, $, #, %).

Maximum Password Age will be 120 days (4 Months) after the initial password is set to adhere to the above complexity rules.

Previous Password History count will be 2 (You can reuse the same password only after 2 previous valid
 password changes have been made)

Here are some valid examples of complex passwords meeting the above requirements:

A suggestion for creating strong passwords that are meaningful is to pick a phrase or word at least eight characters long that you will remember and then substitute numbers and special characters for vowels and capitalize at least 1 character as is appropriate.  Here are examples of this strategy in practice:

Ready to go? Then becomes Re@dy2g0?
What time is it? Then becomes Wh@tt1me1s1t?

Remember to pick something that is meaningful to you but would be hard to guess. Never share your passwords or make them easily accessible (written down).