OWA (Outlook Web Access) allows Exchange users to access their mailboxes (internally or externally) by using a Web Browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer over a secure connection (Https). This technology allows people to get access to their mail wherever an internet connection is present. The OWA interface is easy to use and looks very similar to MS Outlook, where users can see their emails, contacts, tasks and calendars. They can also set “out of office auto reply” and other features that exist in MS Outlook. Most businesses deploy OWA to allow remote users access to emails, potentially even from outside the corporate network, without the need to set up VPN connection or other technologies that allow users to connect to the corporate internal network.
Network security is a major concern for IT Managers and Network Administrators, which brings about the need to implement password policies to force users to change their passwords regularly.
One might ask “what about remote users who are on the move all the time? Are they able to change their passwords without connecting to the internal network? Can remote users do that through OWA?”
The answer is yes. OWA has a “Change Password” feature that allow users to change their domain password. However, this feature is provided by IIS, and is NOT enabled by default on Exchange 2003 Server.
When this feature is enabled, users can select “Options” from button bar on the left, then scroll down to “Password” and click on “Change Password” button.
The link below describes in detail the steps required to enable the “Change Password” feature in OWA:
In addition, an extra and very important step is required if OWA is published through ISA (Internet Security and Acceleration Server). OWA External users may get “Page not found, 404 error” when they attempt to change their domain password through OWA. Therefore, the virtual directory that was created in the steps above “IISAdmpwd” needs to added to the OWA publishing rule in ISA under “Paths” Tab.
If a user tries to change the password in Outlook Web Access and gets the following message:
“Either the password is too short or password uniqueness restrictions have not been met”
even though the password used meets the domain password policy, you will need to ensure that the Minimum Password Age policy in Windows Server 2003 is set to 0 days.
For step by step instructions on how to do this, see Microsoft Support .
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Tags: Change Password, Exchange, Internet Security and Acceleration Server, ISA, MS Exchange 2003 Server, Outlook Web Access, OWA, password policy