Windows XP Login Screen; Forgot password

[aht]

What do you do when you forget your password on the user login screen of Windows XP?

Any ideas? Thanks guys...

 

[talyn00]

Login as an admin and change the password. I always create a backup admin account. But if you don't have another admin account, there is supposed to be a bootable password recovery disk that could reset the password. A google search for 'windows xp password reset' found this

hope this helps

 

[HermDogg]

Did you enable an Admin password when you set up XP?

 

[aht]

^ I do a lot of field support, and I find it frustrating when I'm working on one of the client's computers and I can't do anything because they have a username and password set, and they're not arround to let me know what it is...

So yes, sometimes I can get in using a Guest account or the Admin account with a blank password, but not all the time...

So I guess there's really no way arround it besides using a 3rd party software then?

 

[HermDogg]

Well I'm not sure, but supposedly if you F8 boot into safe mode, sometimes you can login to an admin account from there and change the password.

 

[talyn00]

Originally posted by: HermDogg
Well I'm not sure, but supposedly if you F8 boot into safe mode, sometimes you can login to an admin account from there and change the password.

That should not work, otherwise you've got a serious security problem

 

[stickybytes]

If you need to get data off, try using ntfsdos professional from winternals. Or ERD commander 03. Both tools will let you get access to the data on the drive i believe even without having admin access. As for logging into the account, im afraid the only ways i know of is to use the tool talyn00 mention aboved.

 

[Need4Speed]

Originally posted by: stickybytes
If you need to get data off, try using ntfsdos professional from winternals. Or ERD commander 03. Both tools will let you get access to the data on the drive i believe even without having admin access. As for logging into the account, im afraid the only ways i know of is to use the tool talyn00 mention aboved.

wrong...you can use a linux boot disk, to reset the admin passwd in the sam database

 

[kd7fhd]

Interesting Reading

 

[stickybytes]

Originally posted by: Need4Speed

Originally posted by: stickybytes
If you need to get data off, try using ntfsdos professional from winternals. Or ERD commander 03. Both tools will let you get access to the data on the drive i believe even without having admin access. As for logging into the account, im afraid the only ways i know of is to use the tool talyn00 mention aboved.

wrong...you can use a linux boot disk, to reset the admin passwd in the sam database

I stand corrected 😉. Read Text. Theres a whole bunch of methods listed there.