How Do I Set a Proper Password Complexity Policy in a Windows OS?

A proper password complexity policy would be: eight characters for the length of a password and at least three types of the following characters used: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, digits, and special characters.

Perform the following steps to set a local security policy:

1. Log in to the OS as user Administrator. Choose Start > Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools. In the Administrative Tools folder, double-click Local Security Policy.
   

   Alternatively, click Start and type secpol.msc in the Search programs and files box, as shown in Figure 1.

   Figure 1 Using the search box
   

2. Choose Account Policies > Password Policy and perform the following operations, as shown in Figure 2.
   • Double-click Password must meet complexity requirements, select Enable, and click OK to enable the policy.
   • Double-click Minimum password length, enter the length (greater than or equal to 8), and click OK to set the policy.
   Figure 2 Configuring local security policies
   

3. Run the gpupdate command to refresh your system settings. Figure 3 shows that the refresh is successful and the settings are applied in the system.
   Figure 3 Execution result