Finding a User
The first step to reset a user’s password is to find the user account. Password Control provides 3 different ways to do this:
Method 1
This is the easiest method if you know the username: Simply type the username in the username box. (You can enter either the pre-Windows 2000 logon name or the User Principal Name.). When you click the tab key to move to the “Password” textbox the username will display in underlined font if the user has been found.
Method 2
You can also choose to use the integrated search feature to search for a user account. By default this will search the Surname (sn), Email (mail), DisplayName, Common-Name (cn), UserPrincipalName and UserName (sAMAccountName) properties of a user account.
For example, if I know the user’s surname is “Wiseman” I can enter this into the username textbox as shown in the image above. To perform the search click the “Check UserName” button or press the “Enter” key on the keyboard. In this case 2 matches were found so an additional dialog box is shown to allow you to pick the correct user account:
Click here for information on how you can customize the integrated search feature.
Method 3
If you don’t know the username, you can search for a user account using the basic search feature. Select “Search” from the File menu or press F3. The basic search feature allows you to search for a user account using a combination of first name and surname. By default an exact match is required – use the wildcard character “*” to specify a “begins with” or an “ends with” search. Click the search button after you have entered a first name/surname as shown below:
You can click the +/- buttons to expand/collapse the treeview display as shown:
Disabled user accounts are shown with a red user icon. Once you have identified the user account, click to select the user then click the OK button to return to the main password control form.
Additional Checks
Once you have selected a user account using on of the three methods above, the users properties are shown in the box to the right of the username box – this allows you to verify that the username is correct and that you have selected the correct user account:
Changing the Password
Once you have found the correct user account, enter the password in the password box. Please ensure that the password meets the minimum password length and complexity requirements. Also, please be careful that you enter the password correctly – There is no “Confirm Password” box. You can also click the “G” button to generate a password automatically.
Select the “Force Password Change at Logon” option as appropriate. It is recommended that users are forced to change the password when they logon.
The “Change Password” button should be enabled when a valid username and password have been selected. Click this button to change the password.
Disable/Enable a User Account
Once you have found a user, simply click the “Disable Account” button to disable a user account. An enabled user account is displayed in green, if the user account is shown in red; the user account is already disabled.
Click the “Enable Account” button to enable the user account.
Unlock a user Account
The user account is automatically unlocked when you reset the password. Uncheck the “Account is Locked” checkbox if you prefer not to change the password.
Change Account Options
The account menu can be used to change various account options. Simply click an account option to toggle it on or off. The menu item will have a check mark next to it when the option is enabled.
This feature is new in version 2.3 and is useful if use the “Force Password Change at next logon” when changing a password by mistake and don’t want to force the user to change their password. You can click the “User must change password at next logon” option in the account menu to enable/disable this feature.
Image Gallery
Password Control is able to display a image gallery for a particular user if you are storing user images in Active Directory. User photos could be used for identification purposes in some helpdesk scenarios.
The picture in the right hand corner indicates that one or more images are available for the selected user account. Click the image to display the photo gallery.
