How-To Geek
Why Does My Password Expire in Windows?
A reader on the forum asked yesterday why his password kept expiring on his Windows Vista installation, so here’s the answer for everybody: Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate all have a built-in feature to allow user accounts to have a password expiration.
The problem comes in when your local user account has been set to expire the password, because there’s not an obvious place to change that setting in Vista, although it’s easy to do. Note that this problem doesn’t exist in the Home editions of Windows.
Open the Local Users and Groups administration panel by typing in lusrmgr.msc into the start menu search box. (or the Run box on XP) Select ”Users” in the left hand pane, and then double-click your user account in the list.

On this screen you’ll find the “Password never expires” checkbox.

Just make sure the box is checked and you won’t be forced to change your password anymore.
Windows XP/Vista Home Users
If you are using the Home edition of Windows, you can download User Manager for XP/Vista Home from XPHomeTools. It’s a shareware software, but you can use the trial version to disable expiration.
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Comments (13)
Programmer by day, geek by night, The Geek, also known as Lowell Heddings, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 08/30/07




Windows Vista Home Premium does not allow you to do this. Are you aware of how to change the password expiration on Home Premium?
What happens if it does expire? I have a vista installation that has a single user account plus the administrator account. At login I have tried all know passwords for the single user account but am getting the wrong password error. I am sure I know the password to the Administrator user. How can I get Vista to startup using the Administraotr account insted of the other user?
net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited
;)
@jma: Exactly! Solved my problem for Vista Home Premium which has no lusrmgr nor gpedit.
Thank you!
thank you very much. It solved my problem!
ok using vista home premium so my pw won t go poof correct ! ?
Hey yeah, so is there really nothing you can do for vista home premium??? Because everything suggested here doesn’t work….
Thank you so much! It worked, huge help!
How can I eliminate the recurring requirement to insert my password every time I log onto Mozilla Thunderbird, then again when I attempt to send an email?
yes i know how to do that but my password has all ready exspired???
Last time I forgot my password and tried everything i could do but failed, until I found this great tool Windows Password Software. It works great, and you can google it.you can try to google it.
Will this work for Windows 7? I just had to change my password and after going through the above steps my Password Never Expires box is alrady checked?
thank you so much! 100% works it