vivify is a Windows console (text-based, command-line) program that keeps an account active by securely resetting its password to a random password and optionally performing a logon with the account.
Many domain administrators perform cleanup tasks that remove inactive accounts based on last password change and/or logon timestamps. Some applications may require domain accounts that don't log onto the domain but but still need to remain enabled. vivify is useful to keep these kinds of accounts active.
CAUTION! This program resets the password of an acccount to a random password that is immediately cleared from memory. It is not possible to recover the random password set on the account, so do not use this program on an account that an application uses to authenticate (for example, to run a service or a scheduled task): This will break the application the next time it uses the acount to authenticate! You have been warned. The author of this program is not responsible for broken applications as a result of this misuse of this program (accidental or otherwise).
Bill Stewart - bstewart at iname dot com
vivify is covered by the GNU Public License (GPL). See the file LICENSE for details.
Command-line parameters, except for the account name, are case-sensitive.
vivify accountname [--domainname name | --localaccount] [--passwordlength length] [--logon [--delay delay]] [--noprompt] [--quiet]
accountname - Specifies the account username - do not include a domain or computer name as a part of the username
--domainname - Specifies the domain name where the account exists
--localaccount - Specifies that the account is local (i.e., an account that exists only on the current computer)
--passwordlength - Specifies random password length (0 to 256 characters)
--logon - Attempts a logon using the account
--delay - Waits at least this number of milliseconds after the password change before attempting a logon (0 to 14400000 milliseconds)
--noprompt - Do not prompt for confirmation
--quiet - Suppresses output and error messages
The default random password length is 127 characters.
When using --logon, the default delay is 1000 millisconds (1 second); depending on the domain, a longer delay might be needed to account for Active Directory replication.
If the current computer is a domain member, the default value for --domainname is the current computer's domain; otherwise, the account is assumed to be a local account (i.e., --localaccount).
The --domainname parameter does not work if the current computer is not a domain member (i.e., the account name must specify a local account).
The account running the program must have permission to reset the password for the named account.
The --logon parameter uses the LogonUserW Windows API function to perform a "network logon" for the account on the current computer.
The exit code will be 0 if the command completed successfully, or non-zero if an error occurred.