Alerting of Password Change

[jemckinney]

I must have an issue with OWA. I have enabled the password change icon and all of the steps that follow and users are able to change their passwords through the owa interface. My problem is, that when the password group policy time is up, these users are not alerted that a password change is needed, they just are unable to login. I have looked and do not see an additional step just for this. Is this even possible with OWA?

Thanks!!!!

 

[markdmac]

Not really possible but I can suggest a workaround for you.

Implement a CDO script that will send an SMTP message to the users letting them know passwords will expire soon. You could schedule the script to run every 25 days or whatever schedule gives a few days before they should get locked out.

If you want to get really fancy you could try enumerating through your users to see who's password was last changed X days ago and then send them the message. Using this method they could get a NAG notice every day until they change it.

I can provide sample code to send the email message if you need it.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[jemckinney]

Oh yes, please. That would be great!

 

[markdmac]

'==========================================================================
'
' VBScript Source File -- 
'
' NAME: NotifyPasswordExpire.vbs
'
' AUTHOR: Mark D. MacLachlan , The Spider's Parlor	
' DATE  : 04/15/2003
'
' COMMENT: 
' Schedule to notify users that password will expire soon.
'
' You must customize the entries for oDomain, oMyIP and oTo with the proper company information.
' Items to customize are on lines 22, 24 and 26.
'=====================================
 
Dim oName, ODomain, oMyIP, oTo

' Set the company specific information

' Company Internet Domain Name
ODomain = "myhouse.com"
' Set the SMTP server IP
oMyIP = "192.168.1.2" 
' Where do you want the message to be delivered
oTo = "support@yourcompany.com"


' Set the visual basic constants as they do not exist within VBScript.
' Do not set your smtp server information here.
Const cdoSendUsingMethod = "[URL unfurl="true"]http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing",[/URL] _
cdoSendUsingPort = 2, _
cdoSMTPServer = "[URL unfurl="true"]http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver"[/URL]

'Create the CDO connections.
Dim iMsg, iConf, Flds
Set iMsg = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
Set iConf = CreateObject("CDO.Configuration")
Set Flds = iConf.Fields

'SMTP server configuration.
With Flds
.Item(cdoSendUsingMethod) = cdoSendUsingPort

'Set the SMTP server address here.
.Item(cdoSMTPServer) = oMyIP
.Update
End With

'Set the message properties.
With iMsg
Set .Configuration = iConf
.To = oTo
.From = oName & "@" & oDomain
.Subject = "Password About To Expire"
.TextBody = "This is a reminder that you mist change your password.  To avoid being locked out, change your password now."
End With

'An attachment can be included.
'iMsg.AddAttachment Attachment

'Send the message.
iMsg.Send

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[NickFerrar]

I haven't tested it myself yet but IIS supports notifications via a metabase property.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=833734

is a full KB which briefly mentions it at the end, the specific example command they give is:
cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set w3svc/PasswordExpirePreNotifyDays 4

Apparently it appears as a warning on the top bar within OWA, I think I read somewhere else they need to be logged in to the Premium version to see it but not sure.

 

[jemckinney]

Thanks both of you. I'll try them out and then post back so that others will know how they work if they find themselves in the same situation.

Again, thank you so much!

 

[markdmac]

jemckinney,

correction for what I posted above, this was a script I wrote for notifying me of a service failure and I took out the code you did not need related to that. You will want to change one extra line which is .From = oName & "@" & oDomain Make it something like .From = "administrator@" & oDomain

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[markdmac]

Nick, that KB article is for fixing the password change pages in IIS. It will not resolve this issue other than correct the underlying ability to actually change apassword. The switch you suggested with option 4 would DISABLE the notification of an impending password expiration, which is the opposite of the request here.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark