Password help

koolpc · 20 Dec 2010 at 12:00

My brother rang me and said his son passworded his laptop but has forgotten the number!! Help!!

How can he get back on is there a good program that will help gain access or failing that, would a format solve it?

He siad the password is on the logon page, not bios.

Thanks

theheyes · 20 Dec 2010 at 12:08

Which version of Windows?

Philtor · 20 Dec 2010 at 12:17

ophcrack might be worth a look.

Reza86 · 20 Dec 2010 at 12:24

Passware is excellent, should be able to reset password in under 2 minutes. Not sure if there is a free version or not though.

Failing that depending on the version of windows you might be able to get into the default administrator account in safe mode to reset the password. But a word of warning this can corrupt the login registry files, meaning you have to delete the users account completely and create a new one. If that happens you can make a backup of their files in safe mode before fixing the registry.

Diggsy · 20 Dec 2010 at 12:25

This has got me around this a few times without any hassle... http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

bledd · 20 Dec 2010 at 13:07

+1 for ophcrack

it'll solve any password that uses the following..

a-z, 0-9

gillywibble · 20 Dec 2010 at 13:51

IIRC you could log in to Safe Mode on XP and switch it off in Control Panel.

koolpc · 20 Dec 2010 at 15:00

How do you switch it off please?

theheyes · 20 Dec 2010 at 16:50

theheyes said:
Which version of Windows?

^

If you're on XP it could be as easy and holding F8 on boot and getting access to the default administrator account. If you're on Vista onwards you'll have to resort to one of the above.

tntcoder · 20 Dec 2010 at 16:56

bledd. said:
it'll solve any password that uses the following..

a-z, 0-9

Length is also obviously an important factor (as with most things). Unless it's stored with Windows XP's **** LM Hash, a long and complex lowercase alphanumeric NTLM stored password is still safe.

It's easier just to reset the password tbh as Diggsy said with something like http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

koolpc · 20 Dec 2010 at 20:18

My brother tried above program. Didn't work. Format did! He couldnt be bothered to try endless programs!!!!

Pestilence · 21 Dec 2010 at 09:46

"Offline NT Password and Registry Editor" has never let me down.

Diggsy · 21 Dec 2010 at 11:34

koolpc said:
My brother tried above program. Didn't work. Format did! He couldnt be bothered to try endless programs!!!!

Madness! 5 minutes with the link I provided would've prevented that :rolleyes:

AJK · 21 Dec 2010 at 12:40

koolpc said:
My brother tried above program. Didn't work. Format did! He couldnt be bothered to try endless programs!!!!

Formatting wasn't really a "solution" to the problem! Still, if he's happy.

koolpc · 22 Dec 2010 at 00:48

Solution no, fixed, yes.

koolpc · 22 Dec 2010 at 00:48

Diggsy said:
Madness! 5 minutes with the link I provided would've prevented that

Tried, didn't work

Craig321 · 22 Dec 2010 at 00:50

Diggsy said:
This has got me around this a few times without any hassle... http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

Pestilence said:
"Offline NT Password and Registry Editor" has never let me down.

This. Never let me down either, although I do find you sometimes if you set a new password rather than a blank one then it doesn't work, but there's no problem setting a blank one, does the trick.

Craig