Need help with Windows Xp....

Code-Red · Post by **Code-Red** » Sun May 08, 2005 9:07 pm

Sorry fellas, but Ive searched the web, and I havent gotten many straight answers, and people have been directing me to shady programs. Anyways on with the question.

I recently gave my girlfriend a pc with Windows Xp SP2. There are 4 accounts, one being admin (her account) the others are low access acounts, and she forgot her password. I need an easy way to get her password (or remove it for that matter), whether it be a program or what.

Thanks for any help gents.

neoak · Post by **neoak** » Sun May 08, 2005 9:20 pm

Start it in safe mode (press F5 when its booting).

Enter using the Administrator Account.

Voil?. Remove the password.

butters · Post by **butters** » Sun May 08, 2005 9:50 pm

I think you still need the administrative password.

neoak · Post by **neoak** » Sun May 08, 2005 9:59 pm

Actually, the Administrator account doesn't have a password unless you enter and set it. If he sees the 4 accounts, that means that he is using the normal mode of WinXP. In Safe mode, the first account is "Administrator" then the other admin accounts.

Post by **|darc|** » Sun May 08, 2005 10:05 pm

It asks for the administrator password when you install windows--you can leave it blank but chances are it was entered...

Hawke · Post by **Hawke** » Sun May 08, 2005 10:15 pm

Just do what some people do *cough cough me* use the same password for everything =D

...just make sure no one else knows it

Raijin Z · Post by **Raijin Z** » Sun May 08, 2005 11:43 pm

Not setting an admin password is the source of most of my PC laughs.

Another option is booting from an NTFS-capable boot diskette and renaming the SAM file... but that only disables passwords, you can't make new ones or recover the old ones. There's an Offline NT Password Editor boot diskette that may work better, but it's NEVER worked for me.

Pale Rider · Post by **Pale Rider** » Mon May 09, 2005 12:37 am

Don..login as admin...and change her password...using the accounts tab in control panel..as admin you should have access to all accounts..to edit,delete etc..

butters · Post by **butters** » Mon May 09, 2005 1:02 am

He said in the original post that his GF's account is the admin. account. This means there is no way to change it without knowing it or using some weird "hacking" boot disk.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Mon May 09, 2005 1:37 am

There's an Offline NT Password Editor boot diskette that may work better, but it's NEVER worked for me.

I think MS changed the password format with XP SP1; there is a known bug where you can't use the recovery console from an original XP disc on an SP1 system because it's impossible to log into the Administrator account...

Raijin Z · Post by **Raijin Z** » Mon May 09, 2005 5:52 am

It didn't even work with Win2K SP1. Rather annoying. I was trying to avoid a reformat.

Georgie · Post by **Georgie** » Mon May 09, 2005 9:44 am

neoak wrote:Start it in safe mode (press F5 when its booting).

Enter using the Administrator Account.

Voil?. Remove the password.

what he said but hit F8 for safe mode

Raijin Z · Post by **Raijin Z** » Mon May 09, 2005 12:28 pm

F8 is the boot menu, F5 is instasafe. Or hold CTRL through the boot process.

Sir Savant · Post by **Sir Savant** » Mon May 09, 2005 2:45 pm

Get everyhting you need off of it with a linux disc, and then reformat. That would be my advice, but of course, I reformat every couple weeks anyways.

butters · Post by **butters** » Mon May 09, 2005 2:56 pm

Why would you reformat every couple of weeks?

Raijin Z · Post by **Raijin Z** » Mon May 09, 2005 3:19 pm

Probably forgetting that notavirus.exe is a misfilenomer?

Strapping Scherzo · Post by **Strapping Scherzo** » Mon May 09, 2005 3:24 pm

Back in the NT days I would use l0ftcrack to get admin passwords at my school. There's gotta be something similar that works for XP.

If all else fails: reinstall windows on top of your old installation. At least you won't lose your data.