Locked out of windows by user password! help..

PESolution · 12 Jul 2007 at 10:56

So my friend some how got a password on his windows xp professional sp2 account and now he just gets to the login screen and can't get in. Are there anyways to bypass this? he has important information on it so can't just reformat..

Thanks in advance.

stickroad · 12 Jul 2007 at 10:57

Ignore.

Darg · 12 Jul 2007 at 11:05

Remember when all you had to do was boot in dos and delete the password file in c: drive

XP is a bit more secure then that. You're looking at a reinstallation of windows. Documents in his "Documents and Settings" folder will be lost. The rest should be okay as long as he doesn't format it!

Does he know the administration password? He could try signing in as administrator.

stickroad · 12 Jul 2007 at 11:06

If he has got a second account, log on to it. Then go to start menu - run and type cmd. Once the dialog box appears type net user and press enter. Then type net user, the name of the account that you have lost the password for followed by the little star key (shift and 8). So should look something like this:

net user (accounts name) *

Then press enter and type the new password.

Note: When you type you wont see anything.

Ok if he dosent have another account. Restart the machine, keep pressing F8, a list should come up go to safe mode. Then log on to as administrator and then change your password as you would normally. Select the account - Change password.

You should be able to get into administrator as long you haven't manually put a password on it.

nickcardwell · 12 Jul 2007 at 11:38

the quickest and easiest way to reset windows password (including xp & vista)

Is to download the bootable cd or floppy linux password reset app.

boot up from the cd, and select the windows partition and then select the user account to reset.

can all be done in under 1 minute.

though if you have encrypted files enabled it wont work.

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

PESolution · 14 Jul 2007 at 15:58

thanks a lot guys,

will try the methods

Nick1881 · 14 Jul 2007 at 16:45

I heard you can boot into safe mode and change it from there, not sure how true that is.

stickroad · 14 Jul 2007 at 16:47

mr_x_plosion said:
I heard you can boot into safe mode and change it from there, not sure how true that is.

stickroad said:
Ok if he dosent have another account. Restart the machine, keep pressing F8, a list should come up, go to safe mode. Then log on to as administrator and then change your password as you would normally. Select the account - Change password.

You should be able to get into administrator as long you haven't manually put a password on it.

Nick1881 · 14 Jul 2007 at 16:49

Ah sorry, school boy error, didnt read all replies properly

That'll learn me

caister · 14 Jul 2007 at 17:21

If there are any other accounts with admin provilages you can reset the password by just going to user accounts in the control panel. From there click change an account then select the account that he has forgotton the password on then click remove the password.

If he has no other account log on as the administrator my pressing ctrl-alt-del at the logon screen. This will bring up the classic windows login. Then type administrator in the user name box and the password if there is one.

thecremeegg · 14 Jul 2007 at 17:28

I did it by booting into safe mode, then at the logon screen click administrator. In control panel you go to user accounts and the one thats got the password, and just click remove password...should be fairly easy