With so many people working from home at the moment, you might be receiving warnings that your password is due to expire. In the office, when your password expires you get asked to change it when you login. If you are logging in via Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection, when you password expires – that’s it. You can’t log in! Call your friendly IT Department! But you can avoid that by changing your password manually.
Now if you happen to have taken a work computer home, you might still be logging in using your work email and password when you turn your computer on. If this is the case, the new password will only work for logging in to the Terminal Server. On the computer at home, the password will NOT change until you take it back to the office. This is because the computer at home cannot talk to the password server in the office so it does not know you have updated it. It will continue to work using your current password until you take it back to the office.
To change your password before it expires:
- Log in to the Terminal Server as normal
- Press and hold the Control, Alt and END buttons (Control, Alt + Delete will bring up the menu for your local computer!)
- Click on “Change a Password”
Make sure the first box shows the correct username which might look something like: YOURDOMAIN.COM.AU\jsmith@yourdomain.com.au - Follow the prompts:
- Enter your current password
- Enter a new password with at least one capital letter, one number and one special character (The password policy may be different in your organisation!)
- Re-enter your new password
- Press enter/return or click on the right arrow button in the “Confirm Password” box
If the password is secure enough, and hasn’t been used before, your password will be updated otherwise you will be prompted to try again.
Remember: The new password will only work when logging in to the terminal server – not your local PC, even if the PC you are using at home belongs to your organisation.
You will need to remember the old password to login into the computer in the morning and use your new password to log in to the terminal server.
When you return the computer to the office you will be able to sign in with the new password.