Changing users password with Power Shell and generate a random password.

Hi all.
 
The other day I had to change the passwords for a bunch of users on the fly. Because they were so many, I decided to do it in an automated way and I would like to share it with you all.
 
If you are not doing it directly in a Domain Controller (DC) you need to install and import the Active Directory (AD) module and you also need the required privileges to change passwords.
 
This script will check the users in a specified Organizational Unit (OU) without specifying any user, so be careful if you decide to use it.
 
Warning: If you decide to use this script test it first in a lab environment. Do it at your own risk.
 
This script will check the users in a specified Organizational Unit (OU) and then generate a random alphanumeric password with 8 char length.
Of course we can do more stuff but I don't want to complicate and I just want to show you how it can be done. This is just one way of doing it.
 

#This is the file that will be generated with the users account ID and the password generated.
                      [String]$path= ".\NewPass.txt"
                      
                      #This will check if the file exist and will delete that file so a new one can be created from the scratch
                      #If the doesn't exist will through an error saying that the file doesn't exist and will continue.
                      if ($path -ne $null){Remove-Item $path}
                      
                      
                      <# Required Assembly to Generate Passwords #>
                      Add-Type -Assembly System.Web
                      #In my case I created a OU for test purposes here it is.
                      #You need to change it to meet your requirements.
                      $OU="OU=Users,OU=Test,OU=SATESTENV,DC=SATESTENV,DC=local"
                      
                      #Get the users inside the OU specified in the Options Above
                      $users=Get-ADUser -filter * -SearchBase $OU
                      
                      
                      foreach($Name in $users.samaccountname){
                      #Variable that will receive the random password
                      $NewPassword=[Web.Security.Membership]::GeneratePassword(8,3)
                      
                      #The code below will change the password and will set the Option to change the password on the next logon.
                      Set-ADAccountPassword -Identity $Name -Reset -NewPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText $NewPassword -Force)
                      Get-ADUser -Identity $Name |Set-ADUser -ChangePasswordAtLogon:$true
                      
                      #Here will write the info to the file, so you can communicate to your users the new password.
                      Write-Output "UserID:$name `t Password:$NewPassword" `n`n|FT -AutoSize >>NewPass.txt
                      
                      } 
                      

Select all Open in new window

  Now we just need to test the Script, open your PowerShell and write the name of your PowerShell file followed by [ENTER], in my case is Random.ps1 and wait until the execution finished. This could take some time, depends of the number of users inside the Organizational Unit (OU).

If everything went well, no message is displayed, now you need to open txt file generated by the script and check the usernames and new passwords for the users.
Please note that in my case the defined path to save my files is defined on the beginning of my script like this
[String]$path= ".\NewPass.txt".
 
 


That's it. I hope it helps someone.

Next time I'll create a new article with more complex things, to search specific object types, select different  Organizational Units (OUs) and so on.  

Feel free to comment or just to suggest what else you would like to see with PowerShell.

Cheers.

David