[elvia]

Hey Im adding another pc to the folding team, but somehow or another my son forgot the sign in password. Is there any hope or should I just reformat and reinstall XP

[DMBand0026]

If there's nothing important on the disk, reformat and reinstall. If there is, you may be able to reset the password if you have the XP install disk, although that's outside the realm of my technical expertise, someone else would have to assist you with that. Good luck.

[alcimedes]

Look online, there are lots of free Linux boot disks that will allow you to reset your password and lose nothing.

[Wickers]

often people don't setup an admin password...

So if you boot into safe mode, and use the admin account that would show in the safe mode login page... you should be set. Then just change the user password after loggin in.

Failing that, as alcimedes said, use a linux boot disk set to do this task.

[alcimedes]

easier way to get to the admin account is at the regular login screen just hit ctrl-alt-del twice.

it will call up the window to allow you to type in the username.

otherwise if you're having problems finding a password reset disk let me know, i have a disc image on my machine i can send you.

[elvia]

Problem Fixed Its really scary how easy it was. Like Wickers said I booted into safe mode, went to control panel then users and changed password. then rebooted into windows. From what I've learned here, you can get into anyone's computer (windows) just by booting into safe mode. Talk about a security risk.
Thanks for the help guys. I jsut added 2 machines to the folding team

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by elvia Problem Fixed Its really scary how easy it was. Like Wickers said I booted into safe mode, went to control panel then users and changed password. then rebooted into windows. From what I've learned here, you can get into anyone's computer (windows) just by booting into safe mode. Talk about a security risk. Thanks for the help guys. I jsut added 2 machines to the folding team

Yeah, most people don't use an Administrator password. The ones that do usually use password or their name or something idiotic like that. I used to do tech support at a small college (only got Windows machines in with problems, imagine that), and I very rarely had to ask for Administrator passwords. "Password" worked almost every time if they had a password at all. Whenever the user didn't know the admin. password, we'd use Knoppix or Mandrake Move to reset the password.

[Wickers]

Originally Posted by elvia Problem Fixed Its really scary how easy it was. Like Wickers said I booted into safe mode, went to control panel then users and changed password. then rebooted into windows. From what I've learned here, you can get into anyone's computer (windows) just by booting into safe mode. Talk about a security risk. Thanks for the help guys. I jsut added 2 machines to the folding team

Well not 'anyone's' computer... A lot of vendors will make you set a password when you do a fresh install.. IBM and Toshiba do this for example on their current line of XP based systems.

But on most systems, users just don't know/care enough to set a password... hell most don't even know there is and admin user in the first place.

Not that it matters anyhow, cause when someone has physical access to a box, reguardless of passwords, they can get your data should they want it enough.

(Today's trend of easy to service systems just makes it really easy too... screwless case + 2 min == walking off with your drive)

[alcimedes]

Honestly, a linux boot cd will have the password chaged or blanked out in under a minute. it is by far the easiest, and most consistant way to get access to the admin account on a windows box (or any other for that matter). i have to fix machines all the time where the user isn't present. if they didn't leave a password, i set one.

[Wickers]

True, but I'm not about to ask a windows user (who might not be comfortable working off a CLI in Linux, or hell, might not have any experience with linux for that matter) to burn and boot off a CD when you can always just see if more 'user friendly' ways of getting the job done are available.