TechTips - How to Enable the Exchange 2007 SP3 Password Reset Tool

With the release of the Exchange 2007 SP3 a new handy password reset tool was included so that users can reset their password before logging into the Outlook Web Access. Before this service pack was introduced, when a user was required to change their password at the next logon they would get an error from the Outlook Web Access saying "The user name or password that you entered is not valid. Try entering it again." Now with the Service Pack 3 applied your users can access a SSL page that allows users to change their passwords to the Outlook Web Access. In this guide I will show you how to enable this option for your users.

You might be wondering why this would apply to an organization, so let me tell you how it has affected my users. I have remote users who login to our domain only when they get back from long trips. They often times work from home or on their own personal laptops. Well they have access to the Outlook Web Access with pretty much any PC with an internet connection and are traveling a lot. They don't always have the ability to VPN into the domain and change their password (Expires every 30 days). So before the Service pack 3 and the ability to reset the password using the SSL page for Outlook Web Access, my users would be without email until they could get to the domain again (sometime they travel to other countries for 3 months or more). Now my users can easily change their password using the OWA password reset tool, it makes their lives and mine so much easier.

So let's walk through how to enable this functionality (it's not enabled by default):

Login to your Exchange 2010 Client Access Server with Admin Rights
Click Start
Click Run
Type Regedit
Hit Enter
Navigate to the KEY - HLKM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\MSExchange OWA
Right click in the right window pane and click create New DWORD
Name it ChangeExpiredPasswordEnabled
Set the value to a 1 (enabled)
Close Registry
Click Start
Click Run
Type CMD
Hit Enter
Type IISRESET
Hit Enter

Now you should have the ability to reset your password when using the Outlook Web Access page. You should no longer get the error messages saying "The user name or password that you entered is not valid. Try entering it again". Well I hope this guide helps you to get your OWA password reset tool working!