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Recipe 6.25 Setting a User's Account to Expire in the Future

6.25.1 Problem

You want a user's account to expire at some point in the future.

6.25.2 Solution

6.25.2.1 Using a graphical user interface
  1. Open the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in.

  2. In the left pane, right-click on the domain and select Find.

  3. Select the appropriate domain beside In.

  4. Beside Name, type the name of the user you want to modify and click Find Now.

  5. In the Search Results, double-click on the user.

  6. Click the Account tab.

  7. Under Account expires, select the radio button beside End of.

  8. Select the date the account should expire.

  9. Click OK.

6.25.2.2 Using a command-line interface

Valid values for the -acctexpires flag include a positive number of days in the future when the account should expire, to expire the account at the end of the day, or "never" to disable account expiration.

> dsmod user "<UserDN>" -acctexpires <NumDays>
6.25.2.3 Using VBScript
' This code sets the account expiration date for a user.
' ------ SCRIPT CONFIGURATION ------
strExpireDate = "<Date>"   ' e.g. "07/10/2004"
strUserDN = "<UserDN>"     ' e.g. cn=rallen,ou=Sales,dc=rallencorp,dc=com
' ------ END CONFIGURATION ---------

set objUser = GetObject("LDAP://" & strUserDN)
objUser.AccountExpirationDate = strExpireDate
objUser.SetInfo
WScript.Echo "Set user " & strUserDN & " to expire on " & strExpireDate

' These two lines would disable account expiration for the user
' objUser.Put "accountExpires", 0
' objUser.SetInfo

6.25.3 Discussion

User accounts can be configured to expire on a certain date. Account expiration is stored in the accountExpires attribute on a user object. This attribute contains a large integer representation of the date in which the account expires. If you set this attribute to 0, it disables account expiration for the user (i.e., the account will never expire). Note that this is different than the dsmod user command where a value of 0 with -acctexpires will cause the account to expire at the end of the day. Why does it differ from how the accountExpires attribute works? Great question.

6.25.4 See Also

MS KB 318714 (HOW TO: Limit User Logon Time in a Domain in Windows 2000) and MSDN: Account Expiration

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