I hate disgruntled employees!

[Guest]

Okay, Here's a good one. I'm on a computer at a job I just started. The guy
who was here before had admin access I need his password and he's
disappeared. I just need to install a program and find a network drive but
since I dont have admin access then I can which means Email, installs, and
network drives are out of the question and the IT guy is M.I.A. How can I
recover the password for just this PC and keep what's on it, find the network
drive and keep from being sent home again early because the IT guy didn't fix
it to begin with!!?
HELP!

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Okay, Here's a good one. I'm on a computer at a job I just started.
The guy who was here before had admin access I need his password and
he's disappeared. I just need to install a program and find a network
drive but since I dont have admin access then I can which means
Email, installs, and network drives are out of the question and the
IT guy is M.I.A. How can I recover the password for just this PC and
keep what's on it, find the network drive and keep from being sent
home again early because the IT guy didn't fix it to begin with!!?
HELP!

You can't *recover* a password or see it...but you can *change* it. You'd do
this either by logging in with any other account that has admin rights (have
you tried the built-in Administrator with a blank password?) or using a boot
CD with any one of various tools on it.

See
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/lostpass.htm
and/or
http://securityadmin.info/db/faqresults.asp?keyword=password&SType=AnyWord&CATID=Optional
and/or
http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

If you're not using a domain, your mapped drives are likely on another
workstation or server and you'll have to change the password there to match.
The cached email account password is likely in the old user's profile, which
means it will work once you can log in as that user.

Sounds like your company needs to deal with its IT support problems!

 

[Nepatsfan]

In

Okay, Here's a good one. I'm on a computer at a job I just
started. The guy
who was here before had admin access I need his password and
he's
disappeared. I just need to install a program and find a
network drive but
since I dont have admin access then I can which means Email,
installs, and
network drives are out of the question and the IT guy is
M.I.A. How can I
recover the password for just this PC and keep what's on it,
find the network
drive and keep from being sent home again early because the
IT guy didn't fix
it to begin with!!?
HELP!

You can try logging on with the built-in Administrator account
and going to Control Panel -> User Accounts to change the
password on the former employee's account.

Here's how to logon as Administrator in XP Pro.

If the Welcome screen is displayed, hit the Ctrl + Alt + Del
key combination twice.
This should bring up the Log on to Windows dialog.
Enter Administrator in the User Name box.
Hopefully, no one assigned a password to this account and you
can leave the password box blank.
Click OK.
Once logged on as the Administrator you can go to Control
Panel -> User Accounts and change the password assigned to the
former employee's account.

Note: On the chance that this computer is running XP Home
Edition, you'll have to boot into Safe Mode to gain access to
the Administrator account.

If you're still locked out of the computer, take a look at
these web sites. Note: To use any of the tools described in
these articles, you'll have to be able to access the computer's
BIOS setup program to configure the computer so it boots from
the CD drive. Hopefully, no one set a BIOS password on the
system. If they did, consult the documentation for the system
to see how this is reset. Go to the computer manufacturer's
support web site to view the documentation.

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Top 4 Free Windows Password Recovery Tools
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/passrecovery.htm

Ultimate Boot CD for Windows®
http://www.ubcd4win.com/howto.htm

Keep in mind that changing the former employees password using
any of the above tools will result in any files that were
encrypted being inaccessible.

Good luck

Nepatsfan