Here's the thing. This is an issue with my sister's computer and I'm nont 100% on what lead up to the issue because it happend while she was on it. Apparently she had to download and install quicktime on her computer so she could watch videos on a CD from school for a project. After she downloaded and installed Quicktime she went to start up her computer and was welcomed with a Password prompt at the Windows XP welcome screen. She never had a profile set up before and she says there wasn't anything about setting up a profile during the Quicktime install. You actually can't click on the "Owner" profile to get the password bubble to pop up. But if I hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete twice I can get to the password prompt. I a few generic passwords and tried it without the password but still can't get logged on. I still think she clicked thru a set up too quickly and over looked something but I figured I'd check and see if you guys have any advice. I was first wondering if there was a generic default password that it should automatically use if you don't manually enter your own password. If not, is there a way to get past this? Or am I going to have to reload the operating system? Any and all help is greatly appreciated
Boot up to safe mode by pressing F8 when you first start your computer. When you get to the login screen you should be able to login as administrator with a blank password. If for some reason this password has been changed, then we'll have to go a different route. Assuming that you get logged in, right click on My Computer and choose Manage. In the left pane expand "Local Users and Groups" and then select "Users". You should see a list of users in the right pane. Simply right click on your sister's name and choose "set password".
You mentioned you were using Windows XP, but not which version. If you're using XP Home, you can do what silk said -- go into safemode (by pressing f8 on boot), then log in with the administrator account, then go to Control Panel > Users, and change the password on the Owner account. If you're using XP Professional, you have a bit more of a problem. It would have asked you to create and Administrator password when you were installing; you can log in to this account by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del twice on the welcome screen, then typing in "administrator" for the username and whatever for the password. If neither of these options work for you, you'll have to reinstall windows. Basically, insert your recovery/WinXP CD, and restart your computer. Boot from CD, and reinstall.
That's not true. If you can't get into Windows to change the password, let me know and I'll provide the steps for resetting the password with a boot disc. There's no need to reinstall Windows.
I guess I should clarify a few things. The OS is Windows XP Pro I tried F8 on startup and still get the same screen. Previously, there was not any profiles set up on this computer. On start up it would automatically load the desktop. Now the first screen is where you would click on a profile name and enter a password other than there are no profile names to click on. If I Ctrl+Alt+Delete twice a box pops up with Owner as the name and a box to type in the password with four buttons below ('OK''Cancel''Shutdown''<<<Options'). Thanks for the help so far. Hopefully you guys can help me thru this because I have no idea what else to do.
If nothing works, try this free utility. It resets all the passwords. I've used it and it does work. http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
I stand corrected. I've tried boot disks before, but they've never worked for me, but if you have one that works for you, that's great.
I have locked myself out of Windows XP before. My brother suggested I try Ophcrack, as this is the tool he used when he had the same problem. It worked for me so you might give it a shot. It works by cracking the Windows LAN Manager Hash using rainbow tables. There is a free LiveCD that you can download that has the most basic rainbow tables included. I think they charge a pretty hefty fee for the more complete tables, but the free one worked for me. (Really depends on how good of a password it is, but from what you wrote, it sounds like it was entered by default somehow, so it is probably safe to assume it is relatively simple and Ophcrack will do the job.) Links and references are below... A little background: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000949.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophcrack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_table Here is the link to the official Ophcrack site: http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/ and here are the various versions of the LiveCD image files (in .iso format): http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=133599&package_id=167699 I forget which version I used, (Newer is not always better) but i trust the latest version is just fine. the LiveCD .iso file needs to be downloaded and burned to a regular ol' CD+R or CD-R (or RW). This is what you will use to boot from. Here is the link for additional tables, but it seems they are notoriously hard to find, and I have, as of yet, not found the more complete tables anywhere. (Actually...if anyone knows where to get these, feel free to post.) http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/tables.php Tutorials abound, and are very easy to follow. Mostly it's a waiting game (depending on your machine's speed) for it to crack the password(s). Hope this gets you going. Good Luck.
Personally, I use Winternal's ERD commander. They use to offer a free trial, but they were bought by Microsoft. It has been renamed to Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset (You can read about it here.) You can download a free trial from MS by going here. After you install it, you'll find an ISO file in the directory that you installed it. The default is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset\. You'll then burn that ISO to a CD and boot the laptop using this CD. It'll bring up a limited run-time version of Windows in which you can go to the system tools and use Locksmith to change the administrator password (or any other user's password). This is a useful tool to have for other computer problems as well.
