Administrator Password

[Jeff Le Taxi]

My daughter has password protected windows on her laptop and forgotten the password (doh!) do i have to format and reinstall windows or is there a programme (freeware) to reset the administrator password?
Any help greatly appreciated!

[Rattlehead]

"My daughter", lol.

[hamster]

It will be something really obvious.
Try her rabbits bame, her favourite member of Highschool musical, favourite chelsea player.

In my experience passwords and PINs are pretty easy to crack if you know the person well.

Someone else will hopefully gove you a better suggestion, but persevere Jeff.
Good Luck

[Mewsta]

Take a look here mate:

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

[badgerx16]

1) Which version of Windows is it, XP or VISTA ?
2) Was the account your daughter was using the main system administrator account ?
3) If XP, and she was not using the admin account, had the admin password actually been set ? In my experience most XP systems don't have this set as most peeps don't realise that the account is there.

[hamster]

1)3) If XP, and she was not using the admin account, had the admin password actually been set ? In my experience most XP systems don't have this set as most peeps don't realise that the account is there.

Good point badger, I reckon you should explain this though. As you say, it's not that obvious that there is actually a seperate admin account.

[thesaint sfc]

I have password protected windows on her laptop and forgotten the password (doh!) do i have to format and reinstall windows or is there a programme (freeware) to reset the administrator password?
Any help greatly appreciated!

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305

[saint_stevo]

download HIRENS

[St Landrew]

My daughter has password protected windows on her laptop and forgotten the password (doh!) do i have to format and reinstall windows or is there a programme (freeware) to reset the administrator password?
Any help greatly appreciated!

If I understand your problem correctly, you should be able to boot up Windows in safe mode and eliminate the password as the administrator editing the main account.

Or I can assume it is something more complicated than that because you are on here asking for help.

[badgerx16]

Good point badger, I reckon you should explain this though. As you say, it's not that obvious that there is actually a seperate admin account.
WinXP has a default system administration account called, funnily enough, 'Administrator', and the password is also 'Administrator'. However, if you create your own user account with admin privilege, which most home PCs ask you to do at first switch-on, the built-in system one is no longer available from the normal login screen.
To access this account press F8 as Windows is loading and select 'Safe Mode'. Then when the login box is displayed, you can enter the default administrator credentials. From there you should be able to open Control Panel and edit any account you have forgotten the p/w for.

[St Landrew]

WinXP has a default system administration account called, funnily enough, 'Administrator', and the password is also 'Administrator'. However, if you create your own user account with admin privilege, which most home PCs ask you to do at first switch-on, the built-in system one is no longer available from the normal login screen.
To access this account press F8 as Windows is loading and select 'Safe Mode'. Then when the login box is displayed, you can enter the default administrator credentials. From there you should be able to open Control Panel and edit any account you have forgotten the p/w for.

Oops, I thought this was common knowledge, hence my post above.

[badgerx16]

Oops, I thought this was common knowledge, hence my post above.
Old IT industry proverb :
Never over estimate the 'intelligence' of your user population.

[St Landrew]

Old IT industry proverb :
Never over estimate the 'intelligence' of your user population.

Yeah, that is high up in the rulebook. Perhaps the number one. ;)

[exit2]

Take a look here mate:

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

works great!