Ever wonder how to change a user's password on Windows Server?
Ever scratch your head
because you think it's really complicated,
but it's actually not?
Coming up, I'm going to show you two different tools,
two different ways,
and boy, oh boy, is it going to be simple.
Hello, everybody.
My name is Adam Gordon, Edutainer here at ITProTV,
coming at you with another wonderful
set of tips, tools, and techniques
to help you optimize
your Windows Server administration experience.
Whether you're using Windows Server 2016, Server 2019,
or the brand new Server 2022,
it's all the same under the hood,
and we're going to show you a set of tools
that are going to help you to change or reset user passwords,
and believe it or not,
it's really going to be very simple and straightforward.
I'm going to show you two ways to do this.
We're going to use Server 2019, running as a virtual machine?
Join me here, if you will.
But remember, the tools I'm about to show you
and the ways we're about to do this work
the same way on Server 2016,
they clearly will work in Server 2019,
and they're going to work the same in Server 2022.
The first way, it's going to use a built-in tool.
We're going to go through the Server Manager;
we're going to go back to our old trusty Computer Management tool.
We could do so many things there;
they're just like the Swiss Army knife
of Computer Management tools.
We're going to go in there,
and we're going to be able to reset
that local user password simply by finding the user
and right-clicking on them and choosing that option.
We'll get a prompt.
We'll go ahead and follow the instructions.
Really straightforward.
And then I'm going to break out a brand new tool for you
that's web-based called the Windows Admin
or Windows Administration Center; we'll log in,
and we'll see how to do the same thing through the web interface.
Let's get started.
I'm going to go down here to our Start Menu,
and in case you're not familiar with
where to find the Server Manager,
you can go in there if it's not already open,
and you'll see alphabetically, it's listed under S,
and it may very well just come up right there conveniently.
But depending on the number of tools
and the number of applications you have installed,
it may or may not be available.
You may have to go search for it and go down a little bit,
but it's always going to be pinned right up here
under the Windows Server area on the right.
It's always going to be the upper left most tile.
And I'm going to use that
to open the Server Manager right from there.
Once we do that, and by the way,
we'll get a prompt to be able to download
the Windows admin center if you want to use it
right from here as we start up normally,
unless you've chosen to simply make that go away
and you can simply go out in Google
to find the download link directly from Microsoft
if you want to load the tool.
After you get a chance to see it, you may want to start using it.
I'm going to go over to the right-hand side,
right over here to the Tools menu,
and I'm going to click,
and we have an alphabetized list of tools.
We want our Computer Management tool,
which is the second tool down on the list.
We're going to open that up,
and when we do that, we'll give it just a second.
We'll double-click to make sure
that it comes up full size and full screen.
We'll move this over,
and we're going to come down over here,
and I'm just going to open this up
before I zoom in so you could see this.
And we're going to come down
under Computer Management to local users and groups.
Go to the Users folder.
Our list of users is over on the right.
And your list may look different
depending on the number of users you've created
and what they're called,
but I'm going to reset the password
on one of those Adam number of users.
We'll do Adam2 just for ease of use.
So I'm going to right-click, highlight,
and then right-click this particular user.
And you'll see there I have an option to set password.
I can also go far over to the right, right over here,
where it says more actions for users or for Adam2 specifically.
And I can do the same thing right from here if I choose to.
Just highlight, and you'll see that I can click right here,
and I have that same exact option.
So I could do this from either place.
It's the same thing.
When I do this, I get a prompt here that says,
“Are you sure you want to set the password?”
And let's just take a look at this before we proceed.
And it says resetting.
So setting really means resetting when Microsoft says
that in this particular window.
It says, “Resetting this might cause
irreversible loss of information for this user account.”
Meaning if you don't know that this account
is tied to other resources
and you're not familiar with what's going on,
and you change this password,
you may or may not cause problems.
You just want to make sure you're doing this
with kind of that forethought in mind
of understanding the need for resetting it,
making sure you know why this is happening,
it's a legitimate request,
and you want to make sure
that this is actually something that is a good idea.
But let's assume you've done all that,
you know what's going on, and we are empowered
and have been decided or it's been decided
we're going to reset this password,
we simply click, Proceed.
Let's go ahead and do that.
We'll then be given a prompt here.
And by the way, we've not changed password yet;
we're just reading the warning saying if we do this,
we need to make sure we know what's happening.
I'm going to type in a new password, confirm it.
And then it says,
“Once you do that,
this user account will immediately lose access
to all of its encrypted files, stored passwords,
and personal security certificates.”
Meaning again, you have to make sure you plan for this
and know exactly what you're about to do.
You're about to lose access to any data that user has
secured under this current user account
with that current password before it is changed.
And that may be a problem
if you're not prepared to be able to make sure
all that data has been unencrypted,
you have access to it,
and you can essentially roll it forward
and have access to it once the passwords change.
So planning here is going to be the key to success.
But I'm going to go ahead and change this password.
So let's go ahead and do that.
I don't have any data that I'm worried about
accessing that we're going to lose access to.
So let's do that.
Put in our brand new password.
Click OK.
Password has been set.
We have been successful.
Click OK.
That password has now been changed.
It's that simple.
But remember the warning,
we now lost access to any data that user encrypted
under the user account with the old password,
and that data is not going to be recoverable
unless we have unencrypted it and made sure it's available.
So that was way number one.
And I mentioned we would use
a brand new or newer tool to do this as well.
Let me minimize this.
We're going to go to the Windows Admin Center.
I've already installed the program.
It is web-based, so I'm about to use a web browser
to open up and access it, and you have to configure it,
and you have to obviously add in the Windows server
or servers that you want to manage.
So let me click the shortcut link I have there to bring it up.
We're not going to go over
how to install the Windows Admin Center.
You can download the software; it's free from Microsoft.
You can add in whatever servers
you want to manage them,
managing the local server
that we're running this from right now,
and you'll see that server is right there.
I'm simply going to click on the link,
and I'm going to be able to bring it up
so we can administer it.
And when I do that, it takes just a moment to connect in.
We have all sorts of services and tools that are available here.
It's going to look pretty similar to the Server Manager,
except it's got an updated look and feel for a web interface.
And I'm going to scroll down here,
and I'm looking for the same exact tool we just used
in the Computer Management area,
the local users and groups.
And sure enough, I see it right there,
but it's a standalone tool.
It's now on its own, separate from Computer Management.
That's fine.
I'm going to click on that.
It'll take just a second to load up.
It's querying the server to bring up the list of all the users.
There is our list of all the users.
Notice, they are the same
as the ones we were just seeing there as the Adam2 user.
I can set or reset by changing the password
for any of these users if I choose to.
Let me highlight that.
I can manage them, add new users to a variety of things,
but if I click on the ellipsis right over here
to the right of delete users,
I can change that password right from here.
Let's change that user's password again.
We're going to see here that we do get the same prompt,
the same warning about resetting the user's password
and losing access to that information,
so good to know that's going to be consistent.
We're invited to make that change right here.
So actually, a few less screens
because we don't have to click through the warning,
then reset the password;
we could just do it all from one screen.
It's a little bit easier.
We'll go ahead, and we'll set this up.
And let me do this.
And let's go in.
Do that.
And whoops, they don't match.
One second, let me try that again.
Okay, there we go now, they match.
So, we're told immediately if we make a mistake typing.
We're going to click submit,
and you can see right up there,
password has been updated and changed successfully.
And that's all there is to it using the Windows Admin Center.
So both tools are relatively straightforward,
relatively easy,
it's just a matter of your preference on how to do this,
but remember no matter what version
of the tool you decide to use, it works the same way
across all three versions of the Operating System.
What could be simpler than that?
I'll be back with ongoing conversations and new episodes
about how to optimize your Windows Server admin experience,
but until I come back with another
exciting, fun-filled, fact-filled, tool-filled episode,
I'm gonna wish you happy windowing, and I'll see you soon.