Change Passwords in Sharepoint without using Forms Authentication

When we initially built the server, we went with Windows Authentication partly because we didn't know better, but also because we don't want to complicate the situation with more complicated kinds of authentication. There is one major drawback to the Windows Authentication method: changing a user account password required them to log onto the Windows Server 2003 box -- by which I mean the regular Windows desktop -- go to Control Panel and do all those steps that you would do to change the Windows password on your personal machine. This is kind of a pain since I don't want to know other people's passwords when they ask me to type it for them nor I don't want to enable Remote Desktop or other VNC-like applications on this server.

I had a developer do some research for me on what it would take to enable our users to change their password on our Project Server 2007 box. According to their extensive research, we needed to switch to Forms Authentication, and it was kind of a difficult process to switch from Windows Authentication to Forms Authentication. We only have a small team of developers, and none of us are Sharepoint experts. We had to throw this problem on the back burner since we just didn't have the time or the resources to dedicate to this problem.

But lucky for me, a little bing-ing (what do you call it when you search the web using bing.com?) later, I found a solution! There are a few Web Parts you can buy here and here, but if you don't want to spend close to a thousand dollars for a solution (which I don't), you can find a free Web Part, ITaCS Change Password web part. Go download this tool, run the installer from your Sharepoint server and just follow the instructions available for download as a PDF on the same site you downloaded the installer.

There is one step the instructions leave out though for those of us who are not Sharepoint-literate. In order for you to see the Change Password form, you must pick the page you want the Change Password Web Part to appear on, click the Site Actions button in the upper right corner, click Edit Page, click on whatever “Add a Web Part” button you want, scroll down the popup that appears and check the ITaCS Change Password item, then click Add. At this point you can pick up where their documentation tells you to click the “tool pane” link. When you are all done, configuring the Web Part, you need to click “Exit Edit Mode” in the upper right corner, and you are all done.

Now we can change our passwords without sitting in front of the server. Hurray!