Windows 7 Password Issue

[bawoo49]

I am completely stymied by this problem . . .

My sister-in-law called earlier this evening and informed me that she started her Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit laptop and proceeded to enter he Username and Password and received an incorrect password error. She said she has not changed her password and has used the same Username and Password for several months with no issues. She also said she checked the caps lock key to see if it was on - it was not. I asked if she had an Administrator log in and password and she does not. I do not know if her user account type is set up as administrator and she does not know it - my account is set up as administrator.

I do not use a password on my laptop (bad policy, but works in my situation) and am not familiar with Windows user password problems.

Can anyone please provide some guidance on how to solve this problem. I hope we do not have to resort to a complete re-install!

Thanks for any advice and help.

 

[ViRGE]

Would you be doing the work or would she?

If you're doing it, the fastest solution is just to use the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor to blast away the old password and to set a new one. As a home user she wouldn't be using file encryption, so there's no real downside to this other than the few minutes it takes to work through the utility.

 

[bawoo49]

Would you be doing the work or would she?

If you're doing it, the fastest solution is just to use the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor to blast away the old password and to set a new one. As a home user she wouldn't be using file encryption, so there's no real downside to this other than the few minutes it takes to work through the utility.

I will either do the work or talk her through it via telephone. Is she automatically the administrator if she only has one user account?

Thanks for your reply and solution to this problem!

 

[Ketchup]

I will either do the work or talk her through it via telephone. Is she automatically the administrator if she only has one user account?

Thanks for your reply and solution to this problem!

I can't speak for all brands, but I have worked on Lenovo, HP, Compaq, Dell, and Acer laptops using Windows 7 and they all came set up as an Administrator.

 

[ViRGE]

I will either do the work or talk her through it via telephone. Is she automatically the administrator if she only has one user account?

Thanks for your reply and solution to this problem!

There's no way to be sure without looking at her computer obviously, but if she's the only account then yes, she's almost certainly the administrator.

As for this utility, it's powerful but not particularly user-friendly. It may not be easy to talk her through it on the phone, but it's worth a shot.

 

[bawoo49]

There's no way to be sure without looking at her computer obviously, but if she's the only account then yes, she's almost certainly the administrator.

As for this utility, it's powerful but not particularly user-friendly. It may not be easy to talk her through it on the phone, but it's worth a shot.

After reading the FAQS and instructions for this utility, I think it best that I personally work through this procedure.

After burning the ISO image file to CD and opening the CD in Windows Explorer, I see a file named "desktop", a configuration settings file, in the Files Ready to be Written to the Disk section. Should I be concerned that this file did not burn to the disk?

Thanks.

 

[ViRGE]

After reading the FAQS and instructions for this utility, I think it best that I personally work through this procedure.

After burning the ISO image file to CD and opening the CD in Windows Explorer, I see a file named "desktop", a configuration settings file, in the Files Ready to be Written to the Disk section. Should I be concerned that this file did not burn to the disk?

Thanks.

It sounds like Windows just wants to burn a drag & drop session. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[bawoo49]

VIRGE,

Thanks for your help and sharing your knowledge!

 

[ViRGE]

No problem. That said, in retrospect you should probably test the disk first (try to boot from it) to make sure it works before taking my word for it.

 

[bawoo49]

No problem. That said, in retrospect you should probably test the disk first (try to boot from it) to make sure it works before taking my word for it.

The disk booted, after changing the drive boot order on my Asus laptop, with no problem at all. I reviewed the procedure on my laptop before running the utility on my sister-in-law's computer. The actual process was not difficult at all, I only had to carefully read the defaults at each step and it worked! :thumbsup:

Again, thanks for the help.:biggrin:

 

[Ketchup]

The disk booted, after changing the drive boot order on my Asus laptop, with no problem at all. I reviewed the procedure on my laptop before running the utility on my sister-in-law's computer. The actual process was not difficult at all, I only had to carefully read the defaults at each step and it worked! :thumbsup:

Again, thanks for the help.:biggrin:

Glad to hear it worked well! Thanks ViRGE, for the input. A great piece to have in our tool belts!