Need administrator's XP Pro Password

hald · Cadet Joined: Mar 11, 2004 Posts: 9 Location: USA

I work in a small all-volunteer nonprofit office. One of the people working with the computers recently quit and won't provide the administrators password they set up when logging on to Windows XP Pro as the "administrator." The computer system consists of 3 networked desktops.

Can someone recommend an inexpensive program to recover the password?

Since the windows os is registered to our office, if I call microsoft can they walk me through recovering the password and changing it?

Is the only solution to format the drive and reinstall the system? Please say it isn't so...Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance, Hal

TMOV · Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 2:37 am Post subject:

ok hald ,
the tough part of this is deciding whether you are who you say you are and then whether you really have admin authority.
there are more than two ways to skin this cat and it doesn't involve refomatting and re-installing any o/s either.
do you know how to boot the computer in the safe mode?
if you do that then you can go into the pc and fire the past admin and then rehire with a new password, or hire yourself in the capacity of admin and then you fire the old one. got it?
done it before with lost passwords.
i can't recall the exact syntax but you can't break anything so re-boot and tap the f8 key and it will go into the safe mode.
tmov

hald · Cadet Joined: Mar 11, 2004 Posts: 9 Location: USA

Thanks. I know the hard part was deciding if I was on the level. I swear I'm being truthful. I'll give f8 a try.
What do real office managers/system administrators do to set up security? I'm probably the most computer literate person in our office but I don't really want to be a "system administrator." I love our Director and the people on the board but they are mainly pretty email challenged. Thanks again, -Hal

TMOV · Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 3:22 am Post subject:

TMOV · Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 3:22 am Post subject:

TMOV · Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 3:31 am Post subject:

oh and that part about the f8 key, don't tempt other people with the knowledge of it.
if they have a need to know then you include them in that knowledge.
otherwise don't even mention it.
tmov

hald · Cadet Joined: Mar 11, 2004 Posts: 9 Location: USA

The F8 key didn't work.
On my home computer I'm the only user and no password is set. So when F8 didn't do anything I didn't think it was a problem.
On the office computer it didn't do anything. The system continued to boot to XP Pro.

As for cracking the password, etc., I haven't started attempting to do it (even though f8 didn't seem to do anything). The person (s) responsible for the problem have not communicated with anyone at the office. Several people have called and emailed them. A couple others have made lunch dates. But they have not responded. The Director and 2 of the board members are still hoping that this will be resolved through cooperation. The Director asked me to wait till the end of this week before I do anything, and I agreed to wait.

Hal is my real name (not Harold or Henry or anything).

Thanks for the input. I'm pretty sure I'll be posting some more as the situation develops. - Hal

TMOV · Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 3:07 am Post subject:

i found something posted by someone else here and when i locate it again i'l post right away ok?
so keep tuned in.
tmov

TMOV · Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 5:59 am Post subject:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ts...=&osv_lvl=

go here and read it.
you may be trying to start in safe mode the wrong way.
read carefully.
tmov

hald · Cadet Joined: Mar 11, 2004 Posts: 9 Location: USA

Thank you for all the links. I visited each and read them thoroughly.

On my home system, I can not use the f8 method. Or I am still not hitting f8 at the right time. On each attempt my screen goes blank (black) and nothing happens after several minutes.

Using the msconfig method I was able to boot in safe mode, change settings, and wonder about changing the admin password. I never set a password so the option to change it is not listed; the only option is adding a password. It will be interesting to compare this with the office machine, perhaps on friday.

One "bug" in both systems I'd like to mention, is that you can't enter their bios setup program. I posted this elsewhere because I wondered if this indicates the bios are infected? -Hal

Bulldog · Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 9:10 am Post subject:

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

TMOV · Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 11:21 pm Post subject:

Bulldog · Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 11:36 pm Post subject:

You're welcome.

I have not tried it yet myself but have been meaning to. I hear it does work as stated though.

Same with an NTFS boot disk. One of these days I will get around to trying them.


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