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Accepted
Dennis G
Asked: 2011-04-15 01:19:26 +0800 CST

How to change the current user's domain password without being domain admin?

  • 772

I've seen plenty of documentation of how to reset a user's password by running

net user <username> * /domain

or locally

net user <username> <new_password>

But I am not domain admin for the current domain, so I am not allowed to change the password via net user <my_username> * /domain (Access is denied).

What I can do though, is to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and click on "Change Password", where I have to re-enter my current password and give a new password: enter image description here

Question: How can I script that? I want to change my password via command line. Possible?

Bonus information: I'm on a Windows XP SP3 machine.

Note: Company policy is to make the user change their password every two weeks. And you cannot use your last 24 passwords... Since I don't want to always remember a new password I just iterate through "password1"..."password24" manually and in the end I am back to my old password. It would be great to do this with a small batch instead of the manual way.

windows-xp active-directory password

7 Answers

  1. Try this, i dont know if this will work fot you. its VB script

    Dim UserName
Dim UserDomain
UserDomain = InputBox("Enter the user's login domain name")
UserName = InputBox("Enter the user's login name")
Set User = GetObject("WinNT://"& UserDomain &"/"& UserName &"",user)


Dim NewPassword
NewPassword = InputBox("Enter new password")
Call User.SetPassword(NewPassword)

If err.number = 0 Then
        Wscript.Echo "The password change was successful."
Else
        Wscript.Echo "The password change failed!"
End if

    check this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc780332%28WS.10%29.aspx!domain logon

    • 2

  2. Check this https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee617261.aspx.... There is -Oldpassword param which along with -Newpassword param can achieve this. Remember if you are not a Domain Admin then you need to know the old pwd to do this. Plus when you use the -Oldpassword param ,dont use -reset param.

    • 2

  3. This article from The Scripting Guys has the code and an explanation of how to change an Active Directory password through PowerShell. You generally would need to be a member of the Domain Admins or Account Operators group, but there's a chance it could work with your own account. I haven't tried that yet myself.

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/heyscriptingguy/2010/08/17/how-to-change-a-users-active-directory-password-with-powershell/

    • 1
  4. Best Answer

    Unfortunately I am not in the same system environment anymore, but it should be noted that Sysinternals updated their tool PsPasswd.

    You can use PsPasswd to change the password of a local or domain account on the local or a remote computer.

    Maybe this would have been the solution - I still don't know whether I could have changed my password with that tool. I could change the password via CTRL+ALT+DELETE.

    • 1

  5. The answer by @MealstroM requires admin otherwise you get Access denied. Instead of SetPassword one has to call ChangePassword(old,new):

    Dim wsn
Set wsn = CreateObject("WScript.Network")

Dim UserName
UserName = wsn.UserName

Dim UserDomain
UserDomain = wsn.UserDomain

UserDomain = InputBox("Enter the user's login domain name (or local computer name or dot)",,UserDomain)
UserName = InputBox("Enter the user's login name",,UserName)
Set User = GetObject("WinNT://"& UserDomain &"/"& UserName &"",user)


Dim OldPassword
OldPassword = InputBox("Enter old password")

Dim NewPassword
NewPassword = InputBox("Enter new password")
Call User.ChangePassword(OldPassword, NewPassword)

If err.number = 0 Then
        Wscript.Echo "The password change was successful."
Else
        Wscript.Echo "The password change failed!"
End if
    • 0

  6. This knowledge base article indicates that you can't with the net command, not without domain admin privileges. You may be able to do it with a PowerShell cmdlet, but you may run afoul of various domain policies (for example, password histories), and you may still need domain admin privileges. I suspect you're out of luck.

    • -1

  7. Just do this from command prompt...

    net user domain\username *

    (notice the asterisk on the end after a space)

    It will prompt you for the new password without having to enter the old.

    With this info you can create a script or batch file and a csv file for your passwords.

    • -2