password in windows question?

[Soundguy]

I used to be up on windows.. and computers.. however.. my experience ran from punchcards thru win 95.. started to drop off with 98.. and 2000/milenium. As of XP.. I'm only at 'user' level pretty much.

Now.. here's the question... A friend has a windows PC that has a password set from his 'deceased' wife. He would like to use the machine... What's the easiest way to get around this?

Reinstall windows?

Soundguy

 

[MossRoad]

Is it running XP?

 

[jwstewar]

I have a link to a "password cracker" at home that I used on a friend's computer one time. I'll try to post it when I get home tonight. It had you make a boot floppy (Maybe Linux?) and run this utility. It actually worked pretty slick and was free.

 

[hudr]

I have run into this before. If everything falls just right you can try this in XP:
Reboot the PC, start pressing F8 as soon as the PC starts booting back up. Try logging on as the Administrator. If it is typical, the Administrator password will be blank. Once logged in as Administrator you should be able to change any user's password to access the account on next bootup/login.

 

[johnk]

Kind of defeats having a password altogether. Hopefully the administrator didn't forget his password if he had one and it he or she was the only administrator on the computer.

 

[MossRoad]

Win98 and before had no security. All you have to do is hit the escape key at the login prompt and you have full access to everything on the machine. Files that are password protected still cannot be accessed, but they can be deleted, moved or copied.

WinNT and higher had better security. On XP, for instance, when you set up the machine, the first one on is usually the administrator. That user can then give rights to all new users. Usually the administrator password is blank, but many times, the first user of the machine will enter a password. If that password is lost of forgotten, you are out of luck without a 3rd party password cracker.

Sometimes the administrator will set up a second user named mom or pop and grant that user administrator rights to the machine. Both accounts have full privs on the entire machine. Mom or pop can then delete the administrator account, if wanted. Then if mom or pop forgets the password, game over again. Call out the password cracker.

Best practice is to set up the administrator account with a password, write it down, and tape it to the bottom of the keyboard.... just kidding. Store it in a secure location. Then use the administrator account to create a new user with full admin privs and use that account to administer the PC. If that account is ever lost or damaged, log in as the original administrator account and repair/recover it.

 

[acs55812]

HUDR has it right---if its the admin. password that is not know---reinstall XP

 

[1bush2hog]

Alot of times people will set up a user account and never set the administrator password. Might be worth a try to log on as administrator with no password before he goes to a lot of trouble.

My nephew got a new laptop for Christmas and set up his user name/account and password protected it. When my BIL and sister found out they were concerned they would now be unable to effect his PC - I told them about the admin trick and sure enough no password had been set on this user so they quickly remedied that and all is well now and nephew was none to the wiser either

 

[riptides]

If your interested in files and some data bits, try a Linux varient that can boot off a CD like knoppix. It will get you access to the whole windowx structure on disk.

-Mike Z.

 

[jwstewar]

Sorry that I didn't get this last night Chris. I actually had the link on the kids' computer and they were on it last night when I got home. Then got busy and didn't remember until this morning.

Anyway, I just tried the link that I had saved off and it no longer works. But I did some searching and found something very similar. It was the same type of process where you have to put it to a floppy (I even looked for the file that I had downloaded before ). You then boot the computer and it displays it or resets it.PasswordCracker.

Hopefully this will work for you. I will continue to look for the one I had used before as well.