In this article, we’ll show how your remote users can change their expired passwords using a special web form on a Remote Desktop Services (RDS) server with the RD Web Access role on Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2012 R2.
Contents:
- Can’t Change Expired Password from a Remote Desktop Session
- How to Allow Remote User to Reset Expired Password on RDWeb Access Host?
- Adding Password Change Link to the RD Web Access Login Form
Can’t Change Expired Password from a Remote Desktop Session
In Windows Server 2012 R2 and newer, the NLA (Network Level Authentication) is enabled for the Remote Desktop connections by default. NLA prevents users from connecting to RDP/RDS hosts if their passwords have expired or who have the “User must change password at first Logon” option enabled in their useraccountcontrol user attribute. You can disable NLA (ref1, ref2), but this is not good in terms of security. When you try to connect to the RDSH server (Remote Desktop Session Host) under a user account with the expired password, the following error message appears:
An authentication error has occurred.The Local Security Authority cannot be contactedRemote computer: lonSrvRDS1This could be due to an expired passwordPlease update your password if it has expired.
When using NLA, remote RDP users cannot change their expired password if they have no other way to access the corporate network other than RDS infrastructure. Certainly, you can ask your users to change their passwords directly in the RDP session in advance, or by enabling the Interactive logon: Prompt user to change password before expiration GPO option RDS hosts (Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options), but it doesn’t always work due to a common forgetfulness of the users.
In Windows 2012 R2 and newer, remote users can manually reset their password (current password or expired password) through a special web page on the server with the Remote Desktop Web Access role. To change the password, the user must authenticate via the RDS-WebAccess sign-in web-page and change the password using a special aspx form.
Note. In Windows Server 2003, domain users could change their expired passwords usinga small web application IISADMPWD(though not officially supported).
How to Allow Remote User to Reset Expired Password on RDWeb Access Host?
A remote password change option is available on the server with the Remote Desktop Web Access (RD Web Access) role, but this feature is disabled by default.
If you have an RDS server farm deployed, you can find a server with the RDS-WEB-Access role installed by connecting the deployment configuration on the RD Connection Broker host:
Get-RDServer -ConnectionBroker rdcb1.woshub.com| where {$_.roles -eq "RDS-WEB-ACCESS"}
To change a password, use the script in the password.aspx file located in the C:\Windows\Web\RDWeb\Pages\en-US.
If you are using a localized version of Windows Server (without language pack) the path to the password.aspx file will be different and look like this:
- C:\Windows\Web\RDWeb\Pages\fr-FR – for the French edition of Windows Server
- C:\Windows\Web\RDWeb\Pages\de-DE – for German edition.
To enable the password change option, you need to run the IIS Manager console (inetmgr) on the server with the configured RD Web Access role. Go to [Server Name] –> Sites –> Default Web Site –> RDWeb –> Pages and open the Application Settings section.
In the right pane, find the PasswordChangeEnabled parameter and change its value to true.
Also, you can set the PasswordChangeEnabled parameter to True in the IIS config file C:\Windows\Web\RDWeb\Pages\Web.config.
The PasswordChangeEnabled parameter allows Active Directory users to change their expired password through the RD Web Access portal. This option does not allow changing the password of local users on RDS hosts in a workgroup environment (without domain).
Restart the IIS web-server from the console or use the command:
iisreset
To check the availability of the password change page, go to the following web page:
https://lonSrvRDS1/RDWeb/Pages/en-US/password.aspx
RD Web Access must have a valid SSL certificate installed. You can use the free Let’s Encrypt certificate in IIS.
Enter the username, the old password, and the new password twice.
After successfully changing the user’s password, the following message should appear:
Your password has been successfully changed.
Click OK and the user will be redirected to the RD Web login page. If the user’s password does not match the domain’s password policy, a warning message will appear:
Your new password does not meet the length, complexity, or history requirements of your domain. Try choosing a different new password.
You can use this password change way on the Remote Desktop Web Access server only if Forms Authentication is enabled on the IIS on RDWA server. You won’t be able to change the password through the RD web form if the Windows Authentication method is used.
You can list and change the supported authentication types in the IIS Manager console. Select Sites -> Default Web Sites -> RDWeb -> Pages in the right pane, select Forms Authentication.
Now, when trying to connect to the RD Web Access server with the expired password, the user will be redirected to password.aspx web-page and offered to change his password.
Tip. You can change an expired password on Windows Server 2008 R2 with the RD Web Access Role after installing the special update KB2648402.
Adding Password Change Link to the RD Web Access Login Form
You can add a link to the password change form directly to the Remote Desktop WebAccess sign-in form. This will allow users to change their password any time without waiting till it expires.
Insert a link to the password.aspx file into the RDWeb sign-in page (create a backup copy of the password.aspx file before editing).
- On the RDWeb server, find and openthe file C:\Windows\Web\RDWeb\Pages\en-US\login.aspx in any text editor (I prefer Notepad++);
- Go to line 429 (In Windows Server 2022, it is located after the following HTML block
<tr id="trPasswordExpiredNoChange" <%=strErrorMessageRowStyle%> > … </tr>) and paste the following code: <!-- Begin: Add Change Password Link -->
<tr>
<td align="right"> <a href="password.aspx" title="Change AD User Password">Click here </a>to change your password.
</td>
</tr>
<!-- End: Add Change Password Link -->- Save the changes in the login.aspx file, restart the IIS website, and make sure that a link to the password change page appears on the sign-in page of the RD Web server.
Remote users can now change the expired password on your RDS server without administrator intervention. Note that if you use domain Cached Credentials to log on to your local computer, they will not be updated after you change your Active Directory password via RDWebAccess.
As an AI language model, I have a wide range of knowledge on various topics, including remote desktop services (RDS) and password management. I can provide information and insights on how remote users can change their expired passwords using a special web form on an RDS server with the RD Web Access role on Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2012 R2.
Can't Change Expired Password from a Remote Desktop Session
In Windows Server 2012 R2 and newer, the Network Level Authentication (NLA) is enabled for Remote Desktop connections by default. NLA prevents users from connecting to RDP/RDS hosts if their passwords have expired or if they have the "User must change password at first Logon" option enabled in their user account control attribute When users with expired passwords try to connect to the RDSH server (Remote Desktop Session Host), they receive an authentication error message stating that the Local Security Authority cannot be contacted and that the password may have expired.
How to Allow Remote Users to Reset Expired Password on RDWeb Access Host?
To allow remote users to reset their expired passwords on an RDWeb Access host, you can enable the password change option on the server with the Remote Desktop Web Access (RD Web Access) role. By default, this feature is disabled.
To enable the password change option, you need to perform the following steps:
- Open the IIS Manager console (inetmgr) on the server with the configured RD Web Access role.
- Navigate to [Server Name] -> Sites -> Default Web Site -> RDWeb -> Pages.
- Open the Application Settings section.
- In the right pane, find the PasswordChangeEnabled parameter and change its value to true.
- Alternatively, you can set the PasswordChangeEnabled parameter to True in the IIS config file located at C:\Windows\Web\RDWeb\Pages\Web.config.
- Restart the IIS web server either from the console or by using the command
iisreset.
After enabling the password change option, Active Directory users can change their expired passwords through the RD Web Access portal. However, please note that this option does not allow changing the password of local users on RDS hosts in a workgroup environment (without a domain) .
Adding Password Change Link to the RD Web Access Login Form
If you want to provide a direct link to the password change form on the RD Web Access login page, you can modify the login.aspx file. Here are the steps:
- Open the file
C:\Windows\Web\RDWeb\Pages\en-US\login.aspx(or the corresponding file for your language) in a text editor. - Locate line 429 (in Windows Server 2022, it is located after the HTML block
<tr id="trPasswordExpiredNoChange" <%=strErrorMessageRowStyle%> > … </tr>). - Paste the following code at line 429:
<!-- Begin: Add Change Password Link --> <tr> <td align="right"> <a href="password.aspx" title="Change AD User Password">Click here</a> to change your password. </td> </tr> <!-- End: Add Change Password Link --> - Save the changes to the login.aspx file.
- Restart the IIS website.
After making these changes, a link to the password change page will appear on the RD Web Access sign-in page, allowing users to change their passwords without waiting for them to expire.
Please note that the ability to change an expired password via RD Web Access is only available if Forms Authentication is enabled on the IIS on the RDWA server. If the Windows Authentication method is used, users won't be able to change their passwords through the RD web form.
I hope this information helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.
