My Windows password (on my work laptop, I no longer have a personal Windows computer) expired and I had to change my password otherwise I wouldn’t be able to login or even send out my daily status reports. Unfortunately, it turns out that the task is more difficult than I imagined. Every time I try to change my password, I get the message: Your password must be at least 8 characters, cannot repeat any of your previous 13 passwords and must be at least 7 days old. My new password satisfied the first two requirements but I couldn’t figure out how a new password must be at least 7 days old. And my old password is definitely more than 7 days old. A frustrated call the the help desk didn’t answer the puzzle. Instead they just gave me a pattern for the password: 8 characters and a numeric character must be in the middle. Totally unrelated to the error message.