Accounts and Passwords on Various Platforms

If you administer your own machine (desktop or portable), you might (should!) need a password to login to that machine. To change your password there, you might try to:

• Linux (and other Unix)
  • You probably can/need to change your password with the (standard) passwd command.
  • Alternatively, as an Administrator, use sudo passwd name-of-account
  • There are probably GUI ways to do this as well, but who needs them if the commands to do so are this simple ;-)
• MacOS-X, both as yourself and as an Administrator
  • Open the System Preferences
  • Activate Accounts
  • Click on your account
  • Click the Lock button if it appears locked and give the Administrator account and password
  • Use the Change Password button
• Windows
  • Open the Security window by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del. On this window, use the Change Password button.
  • Alternatively, as an Administrator, use Control Panel -> User Accounts, select the account and use Change Password.
  • There are some other ways you can get to that function as well, but that greatly varies between the different Windows versions.