Q. What's the Account Lockout Status tool?

A. The Account Lockout Status tool (lockoutstatus.exe) displays lockout information for a specified user by querying every contactable domain controller (DC) in the user's domain. You can download the Account Lockout Status tool at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d1a5ed1d-cd55-4829-a189-99515b0e90f7&displaylang=en. To use the tool, you must be running Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3) or later. To install lockoutstatus.exe, perform the following steps:

By default, the tool is installed in the C:program fileswindows resource kitstools folder. Double-click lockoutstatus.exe. From the tool's File menu, click Select Target and enter the user whose status you want to check. You'll see a window that displays the user's lockout information.

You can also check a user's lockout information at the command line. To do so, enter the command

lockoutstatus -u:[email protected]

where –u is the username.