Computer question. XP and Admin password
 

Dave or anyone else savy with computers.

I remember that there is a way to either recover or delete the Admin password and start over again.

Am staying at a hotel that had a guest computer that was put together a couple of years ago. The IS/IT guy has since moved on and no one knows the Admin Password.

Anyone know how to either find the old one or delete it and start over again? This is for an XP OS with SP2.

Thx,

Joe

do a google search there's a ton of software out there that will do it for you..

go through control panel and click user profiles or something like that (not on my xp machine right now). But it's in control panel.

Did a google search and everything is pay for use software and I am doing this "pro bono"

Looked in the user profiles and it will not let me in as I am not signed in as the Admin.

Anymore ideas?

can't you create a second admin user profile?

Have not tried that. Let me go downstairs and try that.

Thx,

Joe

the IT guy may have made a password disc...this will have the password stored on it in case you need his password. Where are you staying? They must have an IT guy at another location right?

You also might try sending a PM to Slodave. He's a computer guy I think.

Go here, download the ISO for the LiveCD, burn to CD, then boot from the CD

http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

Old IT guy is gone and no one knows how to contact him. Have tried various passwords with no luck.

Then tried to make a second admin account and it blocked my doing so as I was not the Admin!

Then did the thing that Paul suggested and after scrounging a blank CD the computer would not make it bootable! Now back upstairs trying to do this on my laptop... and the damm CD will not work as my program says its been used (but not closed) so it cannot make it bootable!

Wish there was a way to do this with a USB drive! I cannot get it to boot to a USB or would have done that!

Joe

Is the computer logged in to some user at the moment? Disable your AV protection, unzip this program and see it it works. You will hafve to wait about 5 seconds before you can hit OK.

http://jeyjey.persiangig.com/Download/XPPASSMGR.zip

Dave

If it works, delete the executable after you are done and before you turn your AV back on. It will be detected as a trojan and in my case Symantec Corportate will delete it.

Dave,

Thanks and thats what gets me is that there is no AV or spyware programs on the computer. Its connected to the internet and all the guests use it, so no idea how full of virus and spyware it is.

Thx and will try this tomorrow morning.

Edit, you have to log in as "Guest" then go from there to use the computer. Have tried to log in as "Admin" using blank and various other passwords, all with no success.

Joe

Install Avast and CCleaner

ntpasswd works well and is Linux based

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

Was going to put AVG and Ad-Aware. Are the two above better?

I use AVG when I need to. I never cared for Avast, but maybe it's OK as well.

Did you change the boot order in the bios?

I've used a few linux utilities on floppy or usb, should be straight forward once you have the boot sequence and media figured out.

Dave,

I downloaded the file and unpacked it on my usb drive. Immediately it came up with a virus warning, saying that it had "generic9.apdr" on the drive.

Looked it up and only found 3 references to this on google and two of them said that AVG sometimes said that this was a trojan horse but it was not.

Have you had this happen?

Joe,

Yes, that's why I suggested turning off any AV programs. There are certain apps that are OK to run and they mimic trojans, rootkits..., but AV programs are designed to protect against them. I ran the program on my laptop, no worries.

Dave

I have a floppy disk here that will restore your 2000 and XP passwords. Let me know if you want me to email you a copy of the disk. I can verify that it works and is safe. It basically boots up in Linux with simple screen prompts.

The above program worked great BUT only on the Guest section. It will change the password on the computer in the section that you are logged in on, but will not do anything until you are logged in, or thats what I found out this morning.

Need to head to Wally world and get a blank CD and make it a bootable version and try again.

Thx,

Joe