Contacting server and signing in...

Apparently Office 365 has this neat feature where your password expires but it doesn't want you to know. This morning I logged into my computer, grabbed my first cup of coffee of the day and sat down.  About 30 minutes later I got an email informing me that I was not signed into Lync.  And sure enough, the client is sitting there still saying "Contacting server and signing in..."


I went to the Office 365 web page and after logging in it told me my password has expired and asked me to enter a new one. Once I did this and updated my password in the Lync client, it logged in with no problem.

My question now is, how is the average user expected to figure this out? As much fun as I poke at companies like Apple that put form over function, the user experience still matters. And Microsoft obviously still doesn't get it.  Outlook will warn you that your password is about to expire, and then tell you bad username or password after it does. But Lync just sits there "contacting server and signing in" as long as you leave it there.