In any Windows NT based operating system, you can generate strong passwords randomly with an undocumented switch applied to the net user command.
To get started, you’ll need to be using a system running Windows NT 4.0 or higher (Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 or higher).
Create a new user account on the system.
Disable the account so that no miscreants can misuse the account. Don’t worry; if they can get into the system far enough to enable the account, you have other, bigger problems. For my own system, I use an account called ‘testuser’ that I keep around for this purpose. Using this account means that I don’t inadvertently change the password of an account I use regularly.
Next, open a command console (CMD.exe) and type the following and press Enter:
Net user testuser /random
The output of the command will indicate that the password for the testuser account has been changed and the randomly generated password will be displayed.
If you use this method, it’s easy to create random, secure passwords to use with different accounts on other systems, at websites, etc.
For storage of those passwords, take a look at Password Safe at http://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html
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