Forgot Your Password On XP?

[pranky]

1st tip

1. Restart you computer

2.When booting, press F8 and select "Safe Mode"

3.After getting to the user menu. Click on a user and this time it will not ask you for a password

4.Go to Start>Run and type "CMD" (without the quotes).

5.At command prompt type in
"cd C:\Windows\System32"
for 9x/XP

or
"cd C:\Winnt\System32"
for NT/2000

(without the quotes), I am assuming C is your System/Windows Drive

6.For safety purposes first make a backup of your Logon.Scr file.. You can do this by typing in "Copy to Logon.scr to Logon.bak" (without the quotes)

7.Then type "copy CMD.EXE Logon.scr"(without the quotes)

8.Then type this command, I will assume that you want to set Administrator's password to "MyNewPass" (without the quotes)

9.Now, type this in (I am assuming that you are still in the directory C:\Windows\System32) , "net user administrator MyNewPass" without the quotes

10. You will get a message saying that it was successful, this means Administrator's new password is "MyNewPass" (without the quotes)

11. Restart the PC and you will login as Administrator (or whatever you chose to reset) with your chosen password

for this tip to work, the user account u are using should have administrator privilages, otherwise it wont work!!!!!

finish ^-^


2nd tip

CIA Commander can change the admin password to whatever you want.

or

ERD Commander from Winternals will do it also. It can't reveal the password, just changes it to whatever you want.



3rd tip

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor (freeware; based on Linux)
Offline NT Password & Registry Editor


You can also do it with "Windows XP / 2000 / NT Password Recovery Key" (frop Passware , but it is not free)
Passware - Password Recovery Products List

This will change password to "12345" ...

[xtraze]

Hey this is one big security hole in win XP.
Anyone can do this, and there are linux boot disks that can modify the password I think. I have downloaded an .iso file.

[AfTriX]

Win Password Recovery Boot Diskette is another east way of doing the same thing.

[priorityone]

Thanks for the information..I am going to print it out..I didn't realize this could be done..

[AfTriX]

You are Welcome!

Its just easy as having an Ice Cream. One of the main security issue in MS Operating Systems.

[priorityone]

So is it better not to have MS? Is there any system that is really secure? Which is the safest?

[AfTriX]

Nothing can beat the physical security.

[klumpi]

My favorit OS is Mac OSX! I don't know if it is save but i like the layout

Back to the topic: That's cool because my girlfriend forgot her password

[mysticalone]

Nice trick to restore your computer's password.

[Jordan]

Nice tutorial. I've actually had to use this method before when I accidentally renamed my C to G although I used it to restore the default backup registry instead of changing my password.

I think you are missing a step:

7.Then type "copy CMD.EXE Logon.scr"(without the quotes)

7a. Reboot here

7b. Don't touch anything. Wait about 15 minutes where the logon prompt is. When your logon screensaver is suppose to come up you will instead see the command prompt.

7c. One you see the command prompt type "explorer". Windows will appear to load with the start menu and everything. You are very limited here. Most features do not work such as regedit.