Account locks normally are not a big deal to troubleshoot. Often times it is a user typing in an incorrect password to the account they are trying to logon to too many times. Other times, it is being caused by expired or incorrect cached credentials being used to authenticate to some network resource. In the latter case, this is a simple matter of going onto the workstation that has been identified as one locking the account and removing the cached credentials.
In Windows XP, this can be done by going to Start > Settings > Control Panel > User Accounts > Advanced (or Manage Passwords for non-admins) > Advanced > Manage Passwords. Alternatively, you can just use the control userpasswords2 command.
Read the rest of this entry »