Help desperately needed with Windows login

strumpusplunket · 16 Jan 2020 at 18:14

My son's PC had I think some corrupted Radeon software. It wouldn't load the app, couldn't access Radeon settings, and said it detected driver verson 0.0.0.0 in BF2.

I downloaded and ran the AMD cleanup utility from their website, and it popped up a window asking to restart in safe mode, which I did.

However - when the PC restarted it was asking for a password, not a PIN as usual. None of our passwords worked. I went on to my PC and reset my son's Microsoft password, but it is still saying password is not correct on his login screen.

What is unusual is that there are no options showing up on the screen either for resetting password or getting help. Doesn't that usually happen when inputting the incorrect password?

Is there anything else I can try before I nuke his installation and reinstall Windows?

strumpusplunket · 16 Jan 2020 at 22:41

Okay - well, I did reinstall Windows in the end.

But there was some weirdness there with how it was behaving. It wouldn't accept what I am sure was the password on the login screen, and it didn't give any options for switching user or resetting password. I could get into the recovery screen by holding shift and restart, and oddly when I had to enter the password to get to system restore it accepted it - but it still wouldn't accept it to login. System restore didn't work, repair didn't work, adding users via command prompt didn't work, so I was left with no option I could think of.

The thought ocurred to me, though - is there a chance this was keylogging virus or some sort? It would be pretty effective to shut you out of the PC and log keystrokes while you try all your passwords at a hacked login screen.

Well, now I have the rigmarole of reinstalling all his programs and games, backing and restoring saves, re-downloading apps...

Mcnumpty2323 · 16 Jan 2020 at 22:48

More likely to be windows going wonky than a keylogger usually

And you should either
Make images or clones to a 2nd hard drive so don't need to reinstall everything as takes hours to do it all~windows is the quick bit it's everything else after that
Use macrium or similar
Granted I have fast M2 drives but I can fully restore everything windows and all software in 2~3 minutes from an image file
Other more complex option is make your own custom install. Wim file
Then you reinstall windows as normal but it also loads all your stuff too

Quartz · 16 Jan 2020 at 23:14

strumpusplunket said:
Okay - well, I did reinstall Windows in the end.

Next time, make a second, local, account. Just in case.

Mcnumpty2323 · 16 Jan 2020 at 23:23

And as quartz said
I usually enable the hidden admin account just in case
Using
net user administrator /active:yes
Though to be honest loading a recent image backup is usually way faster than the trying to troubleshoot stuff is
Main thing is regular backups

strumpusplunket · 17 Jan 2020 at 07:58

Mcnumpty2323 said:
More likely to be windows going wonky than a keylogger usually

And you should either
Make images or clones to a 2nd hard drive so don't need to reinstall everything as takes hours to do it all~windows is the quick bit it's everything else after that
Use macrium or similar
Granted I have fast M2 drives but I can fully restore everything windows and all software in 2~3 minutes from an image file
Other more complex option is make your own custom install. Wim file
Then you reinstall windows as normal but it also loads all your stuff too

This is good advice! I used to do this with my own PC, but have fallen out of the habit. With now having five computers in the house it's just too big a job to stay on top of, I think. Well, that and I'm lazy!

I am tempted to grab another external drive and take images of them all now, though.

Although in this case it wasn't actually too painful once I got down to it. Since the lad only uses it for Youtube, web browsing and games it was just a matter of reinstalling the game launchers and pointing them at the game files on the D: and E: drives. All his games seem to have had cloud saves, too. It actually only took a half hour or so. My own PC would be a lot more of a pain to get right, so I may just keep images of this one.

Quartz said:
Next time, make a second, local, account. Just in case.

Yeah, thing is I could have sworn I'd added myself as an admin user to his account, but the login screen wasn't showing any options it normally does and I think it just wasn't letting me switch users. I tried using the command prompt to access and control the user accounts, but it was refusing to find any of our accounts, even the boy's own one (though it did accept the password that the login screen wouldn't to get the elevated cmd prompt open...). I've never seen a login problem like it. It did occur to me last night that his PSU died just after Christmas and I wonder if some files on the system drive got corrupted when this happened.

Mcnumpty2323 · 17 Jan 2020 at 11:28

With 5 pcs
Could just schedule the images
To a network /shared drive
Or just make a partition on each pcs
Hard drive put a baseline image in
Then hide partition letter from the user
So you have a working image of each pc set up as user likes it with their settings and software
Similar to a laptop recovery partition

edscdk · 17 Jan 2020 at 11:40

1) don't use a MS account
2) goto 1

strumpusplunket · 17 Jan 2020 at 15:25

Mcnumpty2323 said:
With 5 pcs
Could just schedule the images
To a network /shared drive
Or just make a partition on each pcs
Hard drive put a baseline image in
Then hide partition letter from the user
So you have a working image of each pc set up as user likes it with their settings and software
Similar to a laptop recovery partition

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan - but a bit of work to set up. I'm lazy, remember!

Seriously, the suggestion of making a smaller OS partition on the C: drive to make it easier to take an image and protect the rest of the system is a very good one. I've got slack in recent years with my security and backup practice...

edscdk said:
1) don't use a MS account
2) goto 1

Is this still possible? I don't remember seeing that option when I installed Windows.

Actually, I just Googled it - it looks like it is possible, but you have to do a bit of a workaround, or at least disconnect from the internet when you get to the account setup stage. Clearly not something MS wants your to do, but yes, good to know it's possible by unplugging the ethernet cable at that part of the installation.

Mcnumpty2323 · 17 Jan 2020 at 16:25

Yeah can still do offline accounts during install
Though they are making it harder so people just make a Microsoft account if they don't know how to do offline
Wonder if they intend making no offline full stop
In the future

dessimpson · 17 Jan 2020 at 16:32

It's pretty easy to create a new admin account and get on to windows. As long as you can get in to the recovery console it's a 10 minute job.

strumpusplunket · 17 Jan 2020 at 16:50

dessimpson said:
It's pretty easy to create a new admin account and get on to windows. As long as you can get in to the recovery console it's a 10 minute job.

It might be an easy job if the system is behaving itself!

I just kept getting failed to create user errors when I tried this in the command prompt in the recovery options. As the login screen wasn't letting me switch to the existing admin account I already had I suspect this wouldn't have worked anyway. It really was quite screwed up, I think.

Mcnumpty2323 · 17 Jan 2020 at 16:59

strumpusplunket said:
It might be an easy job if the system is behaving itself!

I just kept getting failed to create user errors when I tried this in the command prompt in the recovery options. As the login screen wasn't letting me switch to the existing admin account I already had I suspect this wouldn't have worked anyway. It really was quite screwed up, I think.

Just out of interest
How you guys getting to cmd?
Installation media
Then repair option?
As when I try to make a custom install. Wim
That won't do it, but installation media
Then press shift+f10 and use cmd then does do it
So does repair option have full admin privileges is probably what I am asking

strumpusplunket · 17 Jan 2020 at 17:12

Mcnumpty2323 said:
Just out of interest
How you guys getting to cmd?
Installation media
Then repair option?
As when I try to make a custom install. Wim
That won't do it, but installation media
Then press shift+f10 and use cmd then does do it
So does repair option have full admin privileges is probably what I am asking

Command prompt was one of the options in the recovery menu. I can't remember now which sub-menu it was under tbh. It wasn't going through media or repair options, though. The option to open a command prompt appeared at a higher level. I couldn't even get repair to work, so didn't try that.

dessimpson · 17 Jan 2020 at 23:13

This is how you change a password for an account:-

Start your PC off the (Disk|USB|HDD) that contains the install media
Once loaded, press Shift+F10. This will open a command prompt
Run the following commands in order:

diskpart list vol

Once you find the right volume (your C: drive (it may have a different drive letter)), run exit
Now, run D: where D is your drive letter.
Run cd \Windows\System32
Run ren Utilman.exe Utilman_old.exe
Run copy cmd.exe Utilman.exe
Reboot

Once you get to the logon screen, click the Accessibility Options icon. Once the Command Prompt opens, run these commands, replacing user_to_change with the user you want to reset the password of:

net user user_to_change *

Enter a new password, enter it again (you won't see it) and log in. You can now go back to C:\Windows\System32 and delete the Utilman.exe that we made, and rename Utilman_old.exe to Utilman.exe

If your administrator account is disabled you can add this command before changing the password

net user Administrator /active:yes

Also, the "net user" command will list all the accounts on your computer.

strumpusplunket · 18 Jan 2020 at 09:15

dessimpson said:
This is how you change a password for an account:-

Start your PC off the (Disk|USB|HDD) that contains the install media

Once loaded, press Shift+F10. This will open a command prompt

Run the following commands in order:

diskpart list vol

Once you find the right volume (your C: drive (it may have a different drive letter)), run exit

Now, run D: where D is your drive letter.

Run cd \Windows\System32

Run ren Utilman.exe Utilman_old.exe

Run copy cmd.exe Utilman.exe

Reboot

Once you get to the logon screen, click the Accessibility Options icon. Once the Command Prompt opens, run these commands, replacing user_to_change with the user you want to reset the password of:

net user user_to_change *

Enter a new password, enter it again (you won't see it) and log in. You can now go back to C:\Windows\System32 and delete the Utilman.exe that we made, and rename Utilman_old.exe to Utilman.exe

If your administrator account is disabled you can add this command before changing the password

net user Administrator /active:yes

Also, the "net user" command will list all the accounts on your computer.

So you can do this from the login screen of the PC you're shut out from? And do you need to have Windows installation media connected (a USB boot device in our case)?

That would be useful information (though it's a surprisingly easy way to circumvent Windows security I suppose...)

I will copy these instructions for the futue just in case. Cheers!

dessimpson · 18 Jan 2020 at 10:13

Yes. Shift+F10 once it starts the windows installer. Obviously you don't actually start Windows installing. Just press shift+F10 when the language selection screen comes up. It is surprisingly easy. Saved my bacon a few times.

strumpusplunket · 18 Jan 2020 at 10:43

dessimpson said:
Yes. Shift+F10 once it starts the windows installer. Obviously you don't actually start Windows installing. Just press shift+F10 when the language selection screen comes up. It is surprisingly easy. Saved my bacon a few times.

Well, that's a new one on me! But potentially very useful.

Thanks!

Mcnumpty2323 · 18 Jan 2020 at 12:41

Yeah as I mentioned earlier shift+f10 is how you need to do it if want to make a custom install. Wim file as repair then cmd prompt doesn't allow it
There's also another one you can use at that same point to get audit mode
And bypassing a Windows password has always been easy
Guess because too many people genuinely forget the password
Not the ones who obviously are up to no good

strumpusplunket · 18 Jan 2020 at 16:19

Mcnumpty2323 said:
Yeah as I mentioned earlier shift+f10 is how you need to do it if want to make a custom install. Wim file as repair then cmd prompt doesn't allow it
There's also another one you can use at that same point to get audit mode
And bypassing a Windows password has always been easy
Guess because too many people genuinely forget the password
Not the ones who obviously are up to no good

Right. I think I was a bit confused as to when and where the options were supposed to pop up. That and since I couldn't get many of the options to work I felt a bit lost with it all.

Glad it's sorted and pleased to know a work-around in case it ever happens again.