How to change Windows Change Password dialog to reflect our custom password policy
Hi all,
We get many requests from customers who have created a Password Filter and now would like to change the Change Password dialog of their Windows XP in order to reflect their new password policy. So when users try to change their password and it doesn't meet the new complexity requirements, they can tell exactly why.
Since there is no way of returning meaningful error messages from password filters, the only way to get the policy to the user is through the Change Password dialog. The proper way of doing this would be creating a GINA hook (basically a GINA stub that passes through all calls to MSGINA.dll except those it is interested in) and displaying your own Password Change dialog with policy information (by hooking WlxMessageBox method). This is our only recommended and supported approach.
Related info:
Customizing GINA
810756 White Paper: The Essentials of Replacing Msgina.dll
Please note that GINA DLLs are ignored in Windows Vista and later.
Also note that there are third-party apps which change the password complexity policy and modify the Change Password dialog without modifying the GINA (i.e. Password Policy Enforcer, which I haven't tried so I can't neither recommend nor discurage its use). Please, take into consideration that Microsoft won't help you find out how they made it, so don't bother creating a case with us so we can reverse engineer those apps. Thank you.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Alex (Alejandro Campos Magencio)