User Accounts are locked sometimes

99 times out of 100 this is caused by someone else trying to log onto that account with THEIR password, cause they cant get their head around the fact that they need to change the username :)

you need to turn on audinting of logon events to make sure that there are unsuccessfull login attempts for these accounts before you worry about a glitch in policy etc, if you are recieving multiple failed login attempts for these accounts then is probably

a user with the IQ of a haddock trying to login as that user with theri own password
a service starting up on a PC or server that runs under that account and has the wrong/old password

if you are not recieving failed logon events then we need to investigate further

@Pete

>99 times out of 100 this is caused by someone else trying to log onto that account with THEIR password, cause they cant get their head around the fact that they need to change the username :)<<

So i'm not the only one that think some users are complete lonatics??? LOL

I do agree with Pete by the way, this has to do with account "bashing" by very good compu users... ;) Small extra fact, this can be set up using Group Policy on the doamin, so i would also check your account lock-out policy..

Also lets not forget the old password protected screensavers.

User has one and then types in the password wrong three times and locks there pc out.

If I had 1p or 1 cent for everytime someones locked out there account by incorrectly typing the wrong password on the the screensaver I'd retire.

Give the users etch a sketches instead. And tell them to shake it if it goes wrong :)


But basically if it's only a few users and not everyone then it's the Users being a complete plank.
Remember
computers =  Good
Users = Idiots

and they should all be treated like little children with no knowlege.

It's the user
it's the user

take there computer away now and cut your support costs down.

One thing to be careful of; Windows has a known problem when a single account is logged on to multiple sessions/machines and the password for the account is changed.  If any of those sessions has network drives Windows will eventually lock the account out by repeatedly attempting to contact the network drive with the old password.  This is done even if you don't have the drive open (apparently Windows periodically checks the connection to the drive, causing the problem).  It won't happen immediately but usually doesn't take long.  This can happen if any of your service accounts use network drives or even if they belong to a group that would recieve network drives through a login script.  When you change a password on a service account you should at least stop and start any services that use the account.  Ideally you should reboot all the servers that use the account.

BTW--Last I checked the screen saver should not lock your account; it's been a bit of security hole for quite some time.  The screen saver only checks against the password you logged in with.  It doesn't contact the DC to check the password so the account doesn't get locked.  It's possible MS changed this behaviour though.

the "account bashing" and screen saver theories are all well and good, but don't explain the service accounts getting locked out....

Indeed Dan, but your suggestion of the services makes the advice complete.. So if we all help eachother, we would be getting somewhere ;) So why don't we all just take away the comps from our users as Scott suggested, my life would be better anyways, knowing my network would be working perfectly...

It's like someone said...

"My network would run perfectly if it wasn't for them damn users"

LOL