Reset admin password?

[btcomm1]

How do you reset windows XP admin password? I know you could boot into safe mode and log in as admin there, but what if the actual admin account has a password on it? What do you do to reset it?

 

[Aberforth]

http://www.password-changer.com/ - although this tool is legal it must be used for legitimate purposes only. You could also use XP password Reset Disc

 

[btcomm1]

Well I don't know if anyone can comment, burning the iso I got from here http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ I set the administrator password using control userpasswords2. I booted off of it, I followed the prompts, I selected the administrator account, I put an * to indicate that I wanted it to be a blank password and it said password changed. Then I booted into safe mode, first time I tried booting into safe mode it rebooted on me, the second time when I selected the admin account it was not a blank password, did I do something wrong with that program? Does that program not work anymore for updated windows xp?

 

[wiin]

Originally posted by: btcomm1
How do you reset windows XP admin password? I know you could boot into safe mode and log in as admin there, but what if the actual admin account has a password on it? What do you do to reset it?

Controll Panel, User Accounts, Change an Account in Pick A Task, pick account you want to change, click on Change My Password, type in current password, type in new password,
then click on Change password.

 

[btcomm1]

Thanks for replying wiin, but the idea is that I want to be able to reset a password without being logged into the system.

 

[Smilin]

log in as any other admin, open users and groups then right click the admin and reset.


Don't do this if you are using EFS. You'll be stuck with encrypted data that you can no longer read.

 

[btcomm1]

Smillin, the idea is that all admin accounts have a password that is unknown otherwise yeah, you can just go into user accounts change the password while logged in as another admin.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: btcomm1
Smillin, the idea is that all admin accounts have a password that is unknown otherwise yeah, you can just go into user accounts change the password while logged in as another admin.

Uh.

I totally don't get what you are saying. Are you wanting to change the admin password to something you yourself don't know? You'll need a hammer and some gauze to help the bleeding after you whack your head.

You can also do this without being logged onto the machine in question. Just point computer management across the net to another box.

If you have something more exotic in mind this might help:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/resources/qanda/oct04/hey1015.mspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272530

 

[hanoverphist]

i know exactly what you mean, i have a few customers tghat like to change passwords arbitrarily and then call me when they forget what they changed it to.

http://www.lostpassword.com/news/pnl26.htm#enterprise

this will make a bootable disk, ask you if you want to reset the admin pw and if yes change it to 12345. pretty cool utility. works for many different programs as well, paid for itself many times now.

edit: my version is old, looks like the newer one gives you total control over the settings too. pretty cool. also does a blank pw now instead of the 12345 thing.

 

[redbeard1]

I have used this procedure before.

MS command line change

This is another option, though I've not used it.

Sysinternals


With pictures

 

[btcomm1]

Thanks guys, this is more along the line of what I was looking for. http://www.lostpassword.com/news/pnl26.htm#enterprise is more of exactly what I'm looking for, however I would like to find one that does this for free. I did find a couple of things that are supposed to work, but when I did it and rebooted the computer refused to boot into safe mode, then it would boot into safe mode but the password wasn't changed.