TL&DR; workaround at the end
So I've been setting up HP DataVault x310 for my own use (maybe it should be called x3112, as I've dropped WD Purple 12 TB in it). It will work as a big store for content from another, linux-based NAS (I don't trust filesystems and hardware that I wanted to set up two distinct storage solutions, as different from one another as one could get.). Also it will serve usual duty of client backups of various PCs that I have. (Hmm, I hope that I have no more than 10...)
I wanted to integrate it seamlessly with the rest of my network - setting the same user accounts and passwords I have on other machines.
Bad luck has it, "Administrator" is among those accounts, with not very complex password (at least not up to the standard of Windows Home Server).
I thought that this would be a piece of cake, as I'm no stranger to lowering password length/complexity settings on various Windows Server OS'es, but it turned out to be tough nut to crack...
As everyone and her dog knows by now, group policy settings has these not set. Still the requirement is there. I think it is somehow user-bound, as password complexity on accounts created with Windows Home Server Console is there depending on the position of the slider in Settings -> Passwords.
My google-fu didn't lead me to answers how to set complexity on per-user basis - the articles that I found dealt with domain controller only - but one of them offered a workaround in comments - offline password editor!
Folk, from whose that brilliant idea originated, used live Linux ISO with chntpw that I remember back from early 2000s. As I didn't wanted burning another CD or figuring out how to put it on USB stick (floppy image would be the most preferred way (compiling chntpw and then fighting with mounting ntfs partition, in part due to the fact that my PXE-netbootin' Ubuntu 16 takes some time to load and my other netbooting Linux is old Geexbox without any compiler), but the best one overall will be to do it from Windows.
I've found a bit dated port of chntpw for Windows, here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100107052 ... /ntpwedit/As I don't have console cable in my DataVault x310 (I do have a console cable with VGA that came with Acer Easystor h340 (with serious issues, for sad story of broken h340, see this link:
https://forum.home-server-blog.de/viewt ... 98#p172698 ), but didn't wanted to open that thing and fiddle with installing it there. Therefore I've moved the HDD to some Vista laptop inside caddy that plugs instead of optical drive like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Protronix-Optica ... B004XIU4T2 (random offering, not the actual one I've bought). Yes, my system drive is some small, old 2,5 laptop HDD, sourced probably from trash by the seller I bought it from.
Using ntpwedit gave no issues, everything went well, though after testing, that my newly set, certainly non-compliant with complexity rules, admin password is working, I've came to the conclusion, that I'm not done yet and I need another account with the password against complexity rules. This time I didn't wanted to do everything all over again, so I decided to do it on DataVault x310.
While I was fighting with DataVault x310 software restoration about a year ago (turned out to be issue in naming directory with recovery data, my old Total Commander ISO-handling packer plugin used ISO9660 name "RECOVERY" which looked valid enough to me, instead of proper "RECOVERY IMAGE" - but I came to this conclusion after several hours of desperate fighting), I've prepared PXE-netbooting restoration image (HP utility pushes that to the server as a first part of the restoration), which is in fact Windows PE equipped with some WHS-specific daemon which does the restoration over the network. My image spawned additional cmd.exe, and also had vnc server installed and executed by default (I didn't have console cable back then but still I wanted to see what happens on the screen). Therefore I've unplugged system drive, waited for PXE windows PE image to start loading, reconnected the system drive and then used ntpwdedit on that WinPE. Went fine this time as well.
So basically WHS console thinks all my passwords are complex, while in fact they're not.
I've tried logging in locally and via RDP and both ways are working just fine.
TL&DR; Use offline password editor like chntpw (linux) or ntpwedit (Windows).