{"id":2337,"date":"2016-12-23T16:12:57","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T14:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mariusbancila.ro\/blog\/?p=2337"},"modified":"2016-12-23T16:12:57","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T14:12:57","slug":"changing-windows-password-complexity-requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mariusbancila.ro\/blog\/2016\/12\/23\/changing-windows-password-complexity-requirements\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing Windows password complexity requirements"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently encountered a problem creating new logins with SQL Server. Something that has worked for years suddenly stopped with the following error:<\/p>\n

Password validation failed. The password does not meet Windows policy requirements because it is too short.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since SQL Server was using Windows local security policy I went and checked that at Security Settings > Account Policies > Password Policy<\/em> in Local Security Policy<\/strong> (available under Administrative Tools in Control Panel or by opening secpol.msc<\/strong>). As expected, these contained setting that I was not expecting, which were probably changed from the network by a system administrator.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

However, I wanted to be able to enter shorter passwords, like 8 characters instead of 10, but this was disabled. Even if I was running as administrator, the option of changing this was disabled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It is however still possible to modify these settings even if you cannot do it from the management console. You can do it from a command prompt as administrator.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Open a command prompt running as administrator<\/li>\n
  2. Run the following command to export the settings to a file. In my example, the target path is c:\\temp\\local.cfg<\/em>, but it can be anything.\n
    secedit \/export \/cfg c:\\temp\\local.cfg <\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  3. Edit the file with notepad or another editor. The file is an INI file with sections and key-value pairs. The password settings are available under the [System Access]<\/strong> section. For changing the minimum length of the passwords modify the MinimumPasswordLength<\/strong> key.
    \n    \"\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Save the file and run the following command to import the settings from the modified file.\n
    secedit \/configure \/db %windir%\\security\\local.sdb \/cfg c:\\temp\\local.cfg \/areas SECURITYPOLICY<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  5. Close and open the Local Security Policy console again and check the settings.
    \n    \"\"<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    I recently encountered a problem creating new logins with SQL Server. Something that has worked for years suddenly stopped with the following error: Password validation failed. The password does not meet Windows policy requirements because it is too short. Since SQL Server was using Windows local security policy I went and checked that at Security … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[52,8],"tags":[501,500,482,433,459],"class_list":["post-2337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tools","category-windows-programming","tag-policy","tag-secpol","tag-security","tag-sqlserver","tag-windows"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t