What it is is a strange mechanism Windows employs to make sure that the DDP always reflects account policy that is held on the PDCe's domain NC head. So, for example, if you directly modified the Password Length attribute in AD on the PDC-there is a process that writes that change into the DDP. Its not very well documented but easily tested. So, in your example below, if you modified account policy outside of the DDP, it would get written back regardless of how restrictive it is. Darren From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alan Johnston Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2007 12:11 PM To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [gptalk] Re: Default Domain Policy _ Password Configuration Settings In this case, would it be true if the modified account policy was less restrictive than the DDP, nothing in the DDP will change? Just curious. Darren Mar-Elia <darren@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: It is possible John. There are certain scenarios where if you modify account policy out-of-band of he DDP (e.g. By modifying the local GPO on the PDCe) then those changes can be wriiten back to the DDP. Its a "feature". : :-) -----Original Message----- From: jfvanmeter@xxxxxxxxxxx To: "gpotalk" Sent: 4/27/2007 7:25 AM Subject: [gptalk] Default Domain Policy _ Password Configuration Settings Hello every, I have a problem that I'm looking for some help with. Has anyone saw a default domain policy - password settings change from not defined to some other settings...ie password length goes from not defined to 12? The domain is running in 2000, most of the server are win2k3 sp1 or win2k sp4 thanks for any help Take Care and Have Fun --john *********************** You can unsubscribe from gptalk by sending email to gptalk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the freelists.org Web interface. Archives for the list are available at //www.freelists.org/archives/gptalk/ ************************ *********************** You can unsubscribe from gptalk by sending email to gptalk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the freelists.org Web interface. Archives for the list are available at //www.freelists.org/archives/gptalk/ ************************ _____ Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell? Check out new <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=48245/*http:/autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html;_ylc= X3oDMTE1YW1jcXJ2BF9TAzk3MTA3MDc2BHNlYwNtYWlsdGFncwRzbGsDbmV3LWNhcnM-> cars at Yahoo! Autos.