One of my co-workers recently asked me if there was a better method for managing Fine Grained Password polices in Windows Server 2008. Basically, he came across Microsoft’s (pretty good) step-by-step for using this feature on TechNet – Link. Upon reading the first step, he quickly realized that managing this feature was going to suck.
Why Microsoft! Like BitLocker, you yet again taunt us with a really cool feature. But, yet again the management of the feature is from the bowls of suckiness. I’m actually biting my tongue here. Yes, if I really wanted to… I could fire up adsiedit and ldifde to complete the management task at hand. But, I have to ask the question, what about the IT Pros that don’t dabble with those tools on a daily basis? You know, the ones managing your products. Forgive me for getting riled up. But, you did this to me with BitLocker and there is yet again a cool feature that isn’t fully baked. I shouldn’t have to go through a multi-step process involving several different tools just to manage one feature. Give me a GUI that is driven by a set of PowerShell cmdlets (click or command it). Errr… like Quest did.
Anyhow, I’m done. My reply to my co-worker was to use either the PasswordSettingsObject cmdlets from Quest or the PowerGUI snap-in which uses those cmdlets – https://powergui.org/entry.jspa?externalID=882&categoryID=46.
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