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Setting a User's Password
Updated: February 28, 2009
Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2
This topic explains how to use the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell to set a user’s password.
Example
The following example demonstrates how to set the password for the user account U1.
Set-ADAccountPassword –Identity U1 -Reset -NewPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText "p@ssw0rd" –Force)
Additional information
For a full explanation of the parameters that you can pass to Set-ADAccountPassword, at the Active Directory module command prompt, type Get-Help Set-ADAccountPassword –detailed.
The Set-ADAccountPassword cmdlet raises an error if the distinguished name of the account includes the asterick character, "*". The error is raised even if you identify the user by sAMAccountName (astericks are not allowed in sAMAccountName values). It does not help to identify the user by distinguished name, even if you escape the "*" character, whether you escape with the backtick "`", the backslash "\", or using the 2 character ASCII hexadecimal equilvalent "\2A". The only workaround found is to bind to the account using the [ADSI] accelerator and invoke the SetPassword method.
Richard Mueller, March 14, 2012.
- 3/14/2012
- RIchard Mueller
