Lost Windows Password

[HamHam]

My friend lost his password to his XP computer. I stumbled upon this site, http://www.loginrecovery.com and thought to give it a shot. Has anyone tried this service or knows about it?

I was thinking about reseting the password, but there may be encrypted files on the computer.

Thanks

 

[Alone]

"There may be"? How about asking this friend if there are or not.

 

[RebateMonger]

Methinks that you will lose any EFS-encrypted files if you reset the User's password. If the PC is part of a Domain, then the Domain Administrator is likely the Key Recovery Agent and could recover the files.

The two requirements for recovering EFS files are knowing the User's password and having the Security Certificate that was used for the encryption.

 

[montag451]

There is a free linux based boot cd that you can use.

Do a search.

It will reset the password, but, as RM said, you will lose any encryped stuff.

 

[ForumMaster]

well you can use this tool to reset the password but you will lose any encrypted files unless you can remember the old password again.

 

[Tarrant64]

If the administrators account has not been locked out via safe mode, boot into safe mode, log in as the administrator, and then change the password there. If you have to use ctrl-alt-del twice or something to get the option to use administrator as a login.

 

[dealmaster00]

or you can go into dos and use the net user command.

syntax: net user [username] [newpassword]

so...if my username is abcde and i want my password to be pass32 then you'd type this into the dos prompt:

net user abcde pass32

i'm assuming the admin account isn't password protected or there's another user account on the system that you can log into.

also...this may only work if you are an admin, haven't used it in a while so i can't remember.

 

[Whiznot]

Download freeware program Ophcrack from SourceForge. Ophcrack is an open source (GPL license) program that cracks Windows LM hashes using rainbow tables. It can crack 99.9% of alphanumeric passwords of up to 14 characters in usually a few seconds, and at most a few minutes. There is also a LiveCD version which automates the retrieval, decryption, and cracking of passwords from a Windows system.