On 13 Mar 2004 at 15:14, Ben A L Jemmett wrote:
>> a friend of mine rebooted his WinXP and realized he lost his password for
>> winxp!
>
>Firstly, make sure he's checked the password hint thingy! :)
>
>> Is there anyway of booting off the install CD-rom and deleting
>> the passowrd file?
>
>No, if you delete the SAM database you'll hose the system completely.
>However, there are disks/CD images that boot Linux and reset passwords in
>NT/2k/XP. For instance, http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ does the
>job. But make *absolutely* sure that you've read all the instructions and
>warnings on the page before you try it.
This is what I've had to do before, on one occasion. It works, but be
very careful, and follow along with the instructions slowly, double-
checking as you go.
>A less drastic alternative, which may or may not work, is to try the built-in
>and hidden Administrator account; at least on XP Home (and in some situations,
>Pro) have an Administrator user that you can't use in day-to-day running. To
>get to it, reboot into Safe Mode (hit F8 after the BIOS POST and just before
>the Windows XP logo appears and select Safe Mode), then try clicking the
>Administrator user at the 'Welcome to Windows' screen. If there's a password
>set for Administrator, back to the offline editor method above.
Haven't tried this, but good to know about it, Ben. Thanks - and I'm
glad to see that this seems to have helped solve the original problem.
Anthony Albert
===========================================================
Anthony J. Albert [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Systems and Software Support Specialist Postmaster
Computer Services - University of Maine, Presque Isle
"This is only temporary, unless it works."
--- Red Green
