Changing Your Password

You will probably want to change your password, as the one you were given is probably terribly inconvenient to type. You will need to change your password on both the Windows NT and UNIX networks. The Macintosh and Windows95 computers do not have user accounts, so you do not have to worry about changing passwords on these computers.

Unix Network

To change your password on the UNIX network, simply telnet to one of the UNIX machine, log in, and type "passwd". The computer will ask you to type in your current password for security and then will ask you to type in your new password twice for verification. For your new password, pick something that you can remember, but which is not a word in the dictionary, or anything obvious to someone else. It helps to mix letters with numbers or punctuation. One common method of generating passwords is to make up a sentence that is easy for you to remember and use the first letter of each word. You can make these passwords harder to crack by using certain characters such as &, $, and @ in place of the words they stand for or are similar to.

NT Network

To change your password on this network, you must log in directly to one of the NT computers. Once you have done this and Windows presents you with the familiar desktop, press <CTRL><ALT><Delete>. This will bring up a system dialog box containing a "Change Password" button. Simply press this button, and follow the instructions int the resulting dialog box.

The Geometry Center Home Page

Author: John McDonald
Comments to: webmaster@geom.umn.edu
Created: Jun 10 1996 --- Last modified: Apr 12 1998