How can i get round my forgotten password?

[Medusa]

Hi all
Recently bought a new laptop which is great, trouble is I've forgotten my password for my old one which has loads of dive stuff, piccies etc which I want. I know there is some software which basically runs a dictionary through the administrators log in. Help please! regards Med

[Mal Bridgeman]

Originally Posted by Medusa

Hi all
Recently bought a new laptop which is great, trouble is I've forgotten my password for my old one which has loads of dive stuff, piccies etc which I want. I know there is some software which basically runs a dictionary through the administrators log in. Help please! regards Med

An open "hack" into most Windows XP machines is to hit F8 during the startup routine, then start in safe mode and log in as Administrator. Most machines don't have this rather powerful user password protected.

HTH
Mal

[MattS]

If you just want to get stuff off the old PC you perform a quick XP install to a new folder (c:\windows.fix for instance).

To recover the existing install try an offline password editor
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

Barts Boot CD is also a very useful tool for dealing with this sort of problem. (search google)

HTH

[RickG]

Assuming you never set a password on your admin account, this should work:

- On the log-in screen where you'd click on your name/icon thingy, hold Alt-Ctrl down and press Del TWICE.

- This brings up the old-fashioned manual Name/Password entry box. Enter "Administrator" as your name and leave the password field empty.

- You can now go into the "Users" settings in the control panel and change the password on your own account to something new.

- While you're there, set a password on the admin account as well!

HTH, Rick.