Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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@gcluley

Here’s a Microsoft support knowledgebase article from the dusty archives:

Support kbase article from Microsoft

Personally, I love the note which says:

Note that the number of required characters changes from 17,145 to 18,770 with the installation of SP1.

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But then I stumbled across this:

Zero length password

So, which is it Microsoft? Zero or 18770 characters?

Hat-tip: @david_navigator.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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