Windows XP password?

Ken Ibold

Final Approach
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Ken Ibold
Everyone in my family has their own computer, and so none of them have user/password logons enabled. Well, my daughter was monkeying around the other day and created a user name and password for herself -- and then promptly forgot the password.

Any reasonable way to blow out the password without being able to complete the windows boot?
 
Normally the user that installed the OS has admin rights and with that you can easily reset any password. Otherwise you can use a password "cracker" or a way to reset the password when booting from another source like the program Troy pointed to.
 
On Windows XP Home, the Administrator account, by default, has a blank password (although some manufacturers assign one at the factory). If you boot into Safe Mode, you may be able to log in as Administrator using a blank password, and change her password while logged in as Administrator from within the Control Panel.

Windows XP Professional machines may or may not have an Administrator password, depending mainly on the OEM's policies. Some leave it blank, others assign the password "password," and others actually assign a real password. In the last few years, though, I've encountered more blank passwords than anything else on OEM installs, probably because they don't want users calling them to find out what the password is.

As Troy and Lance said, there are plenty of password-reset tools out there, but you have to be careful, as it's very easy to plant malicious code in bootable utilities.

If you know someone with a copy of Winternals ERD 2005 (I'm not sure about the 2007 version), it includes a utility called NT Locksmith. Unfortunately, M$ bought Winternals in 2006, immediately pulled the freestanding version of Locksmith from the Web site, and stopped selling the Winternals software altogether after the 2007 release.

There are ISO copies of ERD floating around BitTorrent and eMule, but I would advise against booting into anything downloaded from a P2P network.

There is, however, a ridiculously inexpensive utility called Spotmau Power Suite that is surprisingly useful and feature-packed, considering it's modest price. Among other utilities, it includes a password-reset tool. In fact, earlier today, I successfully used Spotmau to reset a password when ERD failed, because Spotmau recognized the machine's RAID array when ERD didn't. Pretty cool, especially considering that Spotmau costs about 1/20th of what Winternals used to cost before M$ killed it.

One caution: No matter how you reset the password, if your daughter encrypted her files, they will be unreadable if the password is reset from outside her account.

Rich
 
Thanks, guys. As it turns out, she remembered her password (ETsavestheearth) after I posted this. Poor kid (11) was in tears for a while there. But it was a good lesson for her about monkeying around with the computer settings.
 
And you should ALWAYS set an account with admin privileges and a password you have in a safe or something. I create or rename the admin account to "Crash", and then set a strong password, and then I NEVER use that account except for recovery purposes.
 
Ken, tell her to do like everyone at work. Write her password down and tape it to the front of her monitor so she won't forget it. :yes::D
 
Ken, tell her to do like everyone at work. Write her password down and tape it to the front of her monitor so she won't forget it. :yes::D
It's almost like that. "ET Saves the Earth" was a play she was in, and the program for the play is thumbtacked to the bulletin board on the wall behind her laptop.
 
Can't tell you how many times I went through something like that when my kids were young; not quite the same thing, but very similar. What a cute password!

Sorry it happened; sure reminds me of days when my kids were younger <g>

Best,

Dave
 
Can't tell you how many times I went through something like that when my kids were young; not quite the same thing, but very similar. What a cute password!

Sorry it happened; sure reminds me of days when my kids were younger <g>

Best,

Dave
bwahahahaha ... reminds me of me now that I'm older!!!!! :rofl: B)
 
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