Net accounts command

Net accounts command allows administrators to control user account logon settings from command line. Below you can find the syntax of net accounts command explained with examples.

List the current user accounts settings.

c:\>net accounts
Force user logoff how long after time expires?: 0
Minimum password age (days): 0
Maximum password age (days): 120
Minimum password length: 8
Length of password history maintained: 5
Lockout threshold: 10
Lockout duration (minutes): 60
Lockout observation window (minutes): 30
Computer role: WORKSTATION

Change the minimum password length:

Below is an example command to set the minimum password length to 5.

net accounts /MINPWLEN:5

Set password expiry period

Below is the command to set the password age to 90 days.

net accounts /MAXPWAGE:90

Never expire the password

net accounts /MAXPWAGE:UNLIMITED

Set number of the previous passwords remembered.

This prevents the user from reusing any of the remembered previous passwords.

net accounts /UNIQUEPW:4

The above command set the history length to 4.