If your system has multiple users and one of the users is using a weak password or worse, their password has been leaked, you can force that user to change the password on their next login to keep their account secure. In this guide, we’ll show you a simple way to force password change on Windows 10 for any user account using the Advanced User Management tool. Let’s get started.
Note: The following method only works for local user accounts. If you are using a Microsoft account to log into Windows 10 then you have to inform the user and ask them to reset their MS account password.
Steps to Force Users to Change User Account Password at Next Login
First, open the Start menu, search for netplwiz, and click on the result. This action opens the User Accounts tool.
Note: netplwiz is only available on Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise editions.
In the User Accounts window, go to the Advanced tab and click on the Advanced button under the Advanced User Management section.
The above action will open the Local User Management tool. Here, open the Users folder, find the user account for which you want to force the password change, right-click on it, and select Properties.
In the user properties window, select the User must change password at next logon and click on the Apply and Ok buttons to save the changes.
And there you have it. You’ve done configuring Windows to force password change. The next time the target user tries to log into their user account, Windows will show the The user’s password must be changed before signing in message.
As soon as they click on the Ok button, Windows will prompt for both the old and new password. It will not ask for new security questions though.
Once the password is changed, Windows will let the user know the same. From now on, they can log into the system with the new password.
Wrapping Up
As you can see, forcing password change on Windows 10 for any user account is pretty easy. For increased security, you can also make the users change their user account password after a number of days and lockout the user account after multiple password attempts. To do that, have to use the Group Policy Editor and set password expiration rules. These rules will be applicable to all users and user groups.
Update: The guide has been updated to simply the language and steps.