Device Activation Lock

[Vikki Nagindas]

Whenyou mark your accessory as lost, you can leave a phone number, email address, and a message on the lock screen. Your contact information can also be accessed by someone else who identifies your accessory as lost so they can return your device to you.

This CSP contains ADMX-backed policies which require a special SyncML format to enable or disable. You must specify the data type in the SyncML as chr. For details, see Understanding ADMX-backed policies.

The payload of the SyncML must be XML-encoded; for this XML encoding, there are a variety of online encoders that you can use. To avoid encoding the payload, you can use CDATA if your MDM supports it. For more information, see CDATA Sections.

This CSP contains some settings that are under development and only applicable for Windows Insider Preview builds. These settings are subject to change and may have dependencies on other features or services in preview.

The DeviceLock CSP utilizes the Exchange ActiveSync Policy Engine. When password length and complexity rules are applied, all the local user and administrator accounts are marked to change their password at the next sign in to ensure complexity requirements are met. For more information, see Password length and complexity supported by account types.

Account lockout threshold - This security setting determines the number of failed logon attempts that causes a user account to be locked out. A locked-out account can't be used until it's reset by an administrator or until the lockout duration for the account has expired. You can set a value between 0 and 999 failed logon attempts. If you set the value to 0, the account will never be locked out. Failed password attempts against workstations or member servers that have been locked using either CTRL+ALT+DELETE or password-protected screen savers count as failed logon attempts. Default: 0 Account lockout duration - This security setting determines the number of minutes a locked-out account remains locked out before automatically becoming unlocked. The available range is from 0 minutes through 99,999 minutes. If you set the account lockout duration to 0, the account will be locked out until an administrator explicitly unlocks it. If an account lockout threshold is defined, the account lockout duration must be greater than or equal to the reset time. Default: None, because this policy setting only has meaning when an Account lockout threshold is specified. Reset account lockout counter after - This security setting determines the number of minutes that must elapse after a failed logon attempt before the failed logon attempt counter is reset to 0 bad logon attempts. The available range is 1 minute to 99,999 minutes. If an account lockout threshold is defined, this reset time must be less than or equal to the Account lockout duration. Default: None, because this policy setting only has meaning when an Account lockout threshold is specified.

Store passwords using reversible encryptionThis security setting determines whether the operating system stores passwords using reversible encryption. This policy provides support for applications that use protocols that require knowledge of the user's password for authentication purposes. Storing passwords using reversible encryption is essentially the same as storing plaintext versions of the passwords. For this reason, this policy should never be enabled unless application requirements outweigh the need to protect password information. This policy is required when using Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) authentication through remote access or Internet Authentication Services (IAS). It's also required when using Digest Authentication in Internet Information Services (IIS).

DevicePasswordEnabled should not be set to Enabled (0) when WMI is used to set the EAS DeviceLock policies given that it is Enabled by default in Policy CSP for backward compatibility with Windows 8.x. If DevicePasswordEnabled is set to Enabled(0) then Policy CSP will return an error stating that DevicePasswordEnabled already exists. Windows 8.x did not support DevicePassword policy. When disabling DevicePasswordEnabled (1), it should be the only policy set from the DeviceLock group of policies listed below:

The value includes the user's current password. This value denotes that with a setting of 1, the user can't reuse their current password when choosing a new password, while a setting of 5 means that a user can't set their new password to their current password or any of their previous four passwords.

Specifies the default lock screen and logon image shown when no user is signed in. It also sets the specified image for all users, which replaces the default image. The same image is used for both the lock and logon screens. Users won't be able to change this image. Value type is a string, which is the full image filepath and filename.

This policy must be wrapped in an Atomic command. This policy has different behaviors on the mobile device and desktop. On a mobile device, when the user reaches the value set by this policy, then the device is wiped. On a desktop, when the user reaches the value set by this policy, it isn't wiped. Instead, the desktop is put on BitLocker recovery mode, which makes the data inaccessible but recoverable. If BitLocker isn't enabled, then the policy can't be enforced. Prior to reaching the failed attempts limit, the user is sent to the lock screen and warned that more failed attempts will lock their computer. When the user reaches the limit, the device automatically reboots and shows the BitLocker recovery page. This page prompts the user for the BitLocker recovery key. Most secure value is 0 if all policy values = 0; otherwise, Min policy value is the most secure value. For additional information about this policy, see Exchange ActiveSync Policy Engine Overview.

This security setting determines the period of time (in days) that a password can be used before the system requires the user to change it. You can set passwords to expire after a number of days between 1 and 999, or you can specify that passwords never expire by setting the number of days to 0. If the maximum password age is between 1 and 999 days, the Minimum password age must be less than the maximum password age. If the maximum password age is set to 0, the minimum password age can be any value between 0 and 998 days.

It's a security best practice to have passwords expire every 30 to 90 days, depending on your environment. This way, an attacker has a limited amount of time in which to crack a user's password and have access to your network resources. Default: 42.

Specifies the maximum amount of time (in minutes) allowed after the device is idle that will cause the device to become PIN or password locked. Users can select any existing timeout value less than the specified maximum time in the Settings app.

The enforcement of policies for Microsoft accounts happens on the server, and the server requires a password length of 8 and a complexity of 2. A complexity value of 3 or 4 is unsupported and setting this value on the server makes Microsoft accounts non-compliant.

This security setting determines the period of time (in days) that a password must be used before the user can change it. You can set a value between 1 and 998 days, or you can allow changes immediately by setting the number of days to 0. The minimum password age must be less than the Maximum password age, unless the maximum password age is set to 0, indicating that passwords will never expire. If the maximum password age is set to 0, the minimum password age can be set to any value between 0 and 998. Configure the minimum password age to be more than 0 if you want Enforce password history to be effective. Without a minimum password age, users can cycle through passwords repeatedly until they get to an old favorite. The default setting doesn't follow this recommendation, so that an administrator can specify a password for a user and then require the user to change the administrator-defined password when the user logs on. If the password history is set to 0, the user doesn't have to choose a new password. For this reason, Enforce password history is set to 1 by default.

This security setting determines the least number of characters that a password for a user account may contain. The maximum value for this setting depends on the value of the Relax minimum password length limits setting. If the Relax minimum password length limits setting isn't defined, this setting may be configured from 0 to 14. If the Relax minimum password length limits setting is defined and disabled, this setting may be configured from 0 to 14. If the Relax minimum password length limits setting is defined and enabled, this setting may be configured from 0 to 128. Setting the required number of characters to 0 means that no password is required.

By default, member computers follow the configuration of their domain controllers. Default values: 7 on domain controllers 0 on stand-alone servers Configuring this setting larger than 14 may affect compatibility with clients, services, and applications. We recommend that you only configure this setting larger than 14 after you use the Minimum password length audit setting to test for potential incompatibilities at the new setting.

This security setting determines the minimum password length for which password length audit warning events are issued. This setting may be configured from 1 to 128. You should only enable and configure this setting when you try to determine the potential effect of increasing the minimum password length setting in your environment. If this setting isn't defined, audit events won't be issued. If this setting is defined and is less than or equal to the minimum password length setting, audit events won't be issued. If this setting is defined and is greater than the minimum password length setting, and the length of a new account password is less than this setting, an audit event will be issued.

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