Username/password

[Guest]

I switched my laptop from logging on the school domain to my home office workgroup. Everything went well and after it found my workgroup and stored all the settings, I was asked to restart my computer which I did. Now I cannot get back in because it asks me for some username and password that I am not aware of. 2 questions.
1. Is there a general username format when you are part of a workgroup?
2. How can I reset the username and password?
Very frustrating. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Colin Nash [MVP]]

You will need to log in with an account that is *local* to your machine.
Your network (domain) account from school is not valid on this computer
anymore.

By default, there is a local account called "Administrator" -- if you don't
know the password for this account (try leaving it blank...) then you will
need to look here: http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/lostpass.htm (I guess you
would start at step 7)

Or take the system back to school and ask one of the network admins (IT
people) to add it back into the domain.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

By changing the computer from the domain to a workgroup, you have
removed the "trust relationship" between the domain and the machine.
In doing so, you have also rendered any cached domain login
credentials as invalid. You need to be physically connected to the
domain network, you need to have administrative privileges to the
workstation, and you need to have administrative privileges on the
domain. Then you can add the machine back on to the domain, after
having first deleted the computer's old domain account (unless you've
also renamed the computer).


Bruce Chambers
--
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I switched my laptop from logging on the school domain to my home

office workgroup. Everything went well and after it found my
workgroup and stored all the settings, I was asked to restart my
computer which I did. Now I cannot get back in because it asks me for
some username and password that I am not aware of. 2 questions.

 

[Guest]

Actually I was the one who changed the settings, deleted the domain information, and added the workgroup information. The computer was able to locate the workgroup on my home wireless network at which time it wanted to restart to complete the settings.

I have tried all username/password combinations and failed. Is my only hope now to reinstall XP? Do I stand to lose any information on my hard drive?

Once again, thanks for your help.

 

[Colin Nash [MVP]]

That doesn't matter. You did all of that under your domain account, right?.
Once you removed it from the domain, that account no longer exists as far as
your computer is concerned.

In order to go back on the domain, you need someone with the appropriate
permissions to add you back on. Or perhaps your school's IT department will
tell you the password for the account "administrator" and then you can go in
and make yourself a local account etc. The password for "administrator" was
probably chosen when they installed Windows on the machine in the first
place.

The page I linked to gives some info on how to recover your info if you do
opt to reinstall Windows. For example one method is to insert the hard
drive into another PC as a secondary drive. This is kind of a pain with a
laptop but you can do it with the appropriate adapter.

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

Actually I was the one who changed the settings, deleted the domain information, and added the workgroup information. The computer was able to locate the workgroup on my home wireless network at which time it wanted to restart to complete the settings.

I have tried all username/password combinations and failed. Is my only hope now to reinstall XP? Do I stand to lose any information on my hard drive?

Hi

Have you tried to log on with the original Administrator user using
a blank password?


If that doesn't work out, you might try to reset the local Administrator
password with one of the methods mentioned here:

http://securityadmin.info/noframes/faqget.asp#password

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