Password Change Notification Appears, But Users Cannot Comply (245038)

SYMPTOMS

When you try to change your password after you receive the 'Password Change Notification' message, you may receive the following error message:

Password on this account cannot be changed at this time.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur if the 'Password Change Notification' message appears before you are permitted to change your password. By default, the 'Password Change Notification' message appears 14 days before the maximum password age. If the minimum password age has not passed when you are notified, you do not have the permission to change the password, even though you are prompted to do so.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, set the maximum password age on the primary domain controller to at least 14 days more than the minimum:

In User Manager, click Account on the Policies menu.
In the Maximum Password Age box, enter the number of days until the password will expire.
In the Minimum Password Age box, enter the number of days before the user is permitted to make changes.
Click OK.
Quit User Manager.

NOTE: You must perform this change on each workstation in the domain.

MORE INFORMATION

An example of the password change issue is:

If the maximum password age is 30 days, and the minimum password age is 29 days, the password change notification begins on the sixteenth day, which is the maximum password age, 30, minus the default notification time, 14. Users are prompted to change their passwords on the sixteenth day, but they cannot do so because they do not have the appropriate permission until the twenty-ninth day based the minimum password age.

To resolve the issue described in the example, set the maximum password age to at least 43 days.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

135403 14 Day Password Change Notification Cannot be Changed