Logging in, in Windows XP, but forgot PWORD. NOW WHAT?

[timers]

My dad lost the password, actually forgot it, to his main account, which is his only account in Windows XP. IS there any way I can log in to the PC as an admin, or guest. Thanks.

 

[Zlash]

Dam your screwed.


J/k, actually i have no idea , safemode perhaps?

 

[timers]

How can I get into safemode from a restart. There is no way to login using a guest, or administrator mode? This sucks!

 

[deran]

If you are lucky, and didn't assign a password for the administrator(blank by default), or you know the administrator's passsword, you can log in as admin. There isn't an icon for admin. but ou can press Alt-Ctrl-Del, realese Del and press again Del. This way will bring the Win 2000 style log in screen. and you know the rest. Hope this help.

 

[timers]

Ok heres my thing, my dad, I think I only setup his pc as an ADMIN with that being the only account. I am pretty sure the login name is GENE on that, and I know the password, I think. For some reason, it doesnt work. It keeps giving me the not good password message.

If I am the admin, and I forgot my password, and did not make a reset password disk. What are my choices now. I NEED TO GET HIM BACK TO HIS DESKTOP!!!!!

He cant seem to remember the passowrd, nor can I. I tried the Ctrl Alt del thing, and that other log in comes up, which is better because here I can change the user name too, but it still does not work. I AM STUCK. WHAT CAN I DO?

 

[deran]

There's still an administrator account, with the name administrator. Try it with blank passw. If that doesn't work, you can reinstall XP on top and assign new password or buy a software that can change or recover the old passw.

 

[timers]

Can someone show proof in this administrator account being there, because if this is the case, Im fine. Also, where would I be able to find this password software. Thanks.

 

[SpeedTester]

<< There's still an administrator account, with the name administrator. Try it with blank passw. If that doesn't work, you can reinstall XP on top and assign new password or buy a software that can change or recover the old passw. >>



Exactly what I was thinking, I flew through the setup once and forgot to type the PW, I almost paniced
when I had to log in then I remembered to leave it blank. Worth a try anyways
Username: Administrator
PW: <Blank>

 

[deran]

Try the Alt-Ctrl-Del trick and use ( administrator ) as user name and put the administrator password or leave blank.

 

[timers]

Ok the administrator, blank password thing did not work, so what am I going to have to do next. Reinstall Windows XP. how can I go about doing that. THanks. Do I need to create a Windows XP boot disk, or is there ne way Id be able to buy something to reset it, or download something. Thanks.

 

[Mota331]

There is a company out there that can retrieve the password for you, but they charge like $250.00 to do it. If I was you I would just reinstall XP.

 

[timers]

Ok so how do I go about reinstalling Windows XP. I have the CD> What do I need to do. Thanks.

 

[moosey]

http://www.geek.com/tipstrix/win2ktips.htm

 

[jkoXP]

there is always a and administrator account in windows 2000 and XP........ and safe mode will NOT get you around it. nothing will.

 

[Dunbar]

Boot from the CD, select the partition XP is currently installed on (if more than one) and do not format. I think it will leave everything intact, and for the love of god don't require a password at logon this time!

 

[Useful0ne]

If you formatted in fat32 you can reset the sam. At the dos prompt goto X:\windows\system32\congif directory

type attrib sam*.* -r -h -s

then ren !sam

then ren !sam.log !sam.log

Reboot. Windows will recreate the sam files and allow you to log on as Administrator with no password (blank). I'm typing this from memory and think its correct. You can do a search here or on google and find the exact syntax

Good Luck
U-1

 

[easystreet]

In win98 you can boot from a fd and delete the .pwd file.
Can anything similar be done in XP?

 

[NogginBoink]

Timers,

Ultimately, there's not a whole lot you can do. One post in this thread was pretty darn close to being accurate and maybe you can figure the rest out.

If your dad installed XP in a workgroup, and is using Fast User Switching, you can try what others suggested to get in under the Administrator account, as long as you know that password.

If you must reinstall, you can get data off the drive first by putting it in a machine running WinXP.

In the end, though, you are looking at rebuilding the machine from scratch, most likely. This time, don't lose the password.

 

[AnMig]

if you have to reinstall or format, ghost the partition first. so that you can copy the data later on from a different partition. After all it is your dads computer I am sure he has a lot of usefull data in there (living will) that he wants to keep.

 

[bjc112]

and this time! use windows help...under user profiles...theres a part where u can make a password disk..incase u ever forget the one u have...pop that in..and ur good to go...

 

[Dunbar]

I was thinking you could take the drive out and install it in another machine, pull the data you need off onto that machine. Now you can do a fresh XP install and keep the files. Of course you need to know what he wants to save and where it's located.

 

[cureless]

(disclaimer, I'm a Linux/FreeBSD user)

IIRC, Win NT had a "feature" where you could boot off the CD and recover the system (reset all passwords was one of the options).

I think you can do that on XP too. Boot off the XP CD, then do a recover and one of the options should be to reset that sort of thing. I have XP installed on a couple of machines but I've never forgotten the password, so I've not needed that.
It's probably what you want. I'd look at the options in the CD to tell you which one it is but I'm installing on a machine right now so can't do it. Also, you can search in the MSDN database for info on this subject.

cl