Generic User password management

I'm developing a information security architecture for my company and I started some research about generic users (OS and DB) passwords management. I would love to hear how others are dealing with it. How do people deal with passwords inside executable files, text configuration files, registry values, connection strings, etc?

Regards,

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Augusto Paes de Barros, CISSP
http://www.paesdebarros.com.br
augusto@paesdebarros.com.br