Disable Password Expiration in XP Pro

Passwords, of course, should be difficult to guess AND should not be kept the same for too long. If you have been using Windows XP Professional for a while then by default your computer's account's password will expire every 42 days. 14 days before the expiration of this password you will start to get annoying prompts asking you to reset the password. While this is a good idea for security purposes, in most cases people don't really like this feature and would like to disable it, especially when the computer is only used in a home environment.

One way to disable this in XP Professional is by using the Group Policy Editor (GPEDIT.MSC) — but considering the use of Group Policy is generally for domains and a domain should probably have some sort of effective password policy we'll skip that information here and instead supply instructions to disable such easily for a personal computer — one used in the home, where such security is not that much of an issue.

1. Click the Start button
2. Click Run...
3. Type lusrmgr.msc
4. Click OK
5. Click on "Users"
6. Right-click on an account and select "Properties"
7. Under the "General" tab check "Password Never Expires"

   

8. Click OK

Repeat above steps for any other accounts that you desire to disable the password expiration for.

OS: XP > General
Date: 12/15/05

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