Win 2K 'puter locked down

[BarryG]

I sold a computer to someone with Win2K on it. It worked great for them. Recently they were online when something made the computer shut down. When they got it to come back up it was locked down and only the administrator could unlock it. Is it possible that they downloaded a virus and it farked Windows in this manner? I don't know what to do since it's not responding to my administrator password.
On a side note, I had to unlock the BIOS too. At least that was easy. One CMOS clearing and that was done.
Barry

 

[Joemonkey]

snag the "Offline NT password and registry editor" (I think thats what it is called) and you can reset the local administrator password to blank or whatever you want

 

[Kelemvor]

Or have them reinstall the OS sincce I'm sure you gave them the legal copy of the OS CD when you sold them the computer. heh. Or do it for them.

 

[BarryG]

Originally posted by: Joemonkey
snag the "Offline NT password and registry editor" (I think thats what it is called) and you can reset the local administrator password to blank or whatever you want

Looks like a bit of tricky work. I'll give it a shot though.

Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
Or have them reinstall the OS sincce I'm sure you gave them the legal copy of the OS CD when you sold them the computer. heh. Or do it for them.

If the above fails I'll have to re-install the OS. I don't think they have the know-how. You should see what all I can see that they've loaded. I can browse the hard drive when I use ctrl-alt-delete, pull up the task manager and choose "New Task". Lots of P2P programs. The worst part is that they put on AOL 9! I'm telling them flat out that if they're going to load it up with these programs I'm not going to be responsible for it's health.
Barry

 

[BarryG]

To create the floppy one has to "Run (doubleclick) install.bat and follow the on-screen instructions". I don't see no damn on-screen instructions in my MS-DOS window.
Barry

 

[KeyserSoze]

Try running the file FROM the command line, instead of just clicking it.




KeyserSoze

 

[BarryG]

I managed to create the floppy. I'm still going to have to fiddle with it. I don't think I exited the shell correctly. Oops.
B

 

[BarryG]

I'm ending up reprogramming it. Oh well. Life happens.
I started with having to clear the CMOS just to get into the CMOS. It wasn't password protected when I sold it to them! Whatever had hit it, virus or end-user, had really stunk things up. <sigh> I had to short two solder points, not pins, on this board. Odd, but true. Then I was able to boot it to just past the point when the 2000 boot screen goes away. The background would come up and the task bar would flash then disappear. Then it became a pretty picture to look at and that's all.
Barry

 

[imported_Phil]

Charge them.

 

[BarryG]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Charge them.

You betcha!
B