Windows 2000 no longer part of a domain

[Shawn]

A friend of mine has a laptop that was given to him. This laptop cam
from a corporate setting, and that company has since gone belly up. He
can only log in to the one user account; the Administrator password is
unknown, and he has no system disks. It used to be part of a domain,
but we tried telling it to belong to a workgroup instead of a domain
since it is only used at home. Oops. It asked to be rebooted, and then
when we tried logging on with the same username and password, it would
tell us that the username, password, or domain is wrong. We can't get
back in to tell it to rejoin a domain. Is it hopeless? Is there any
way to salvage the laptop, or should a new OS be installed?

Thanks,
Shawn

 

[Mike Brannigan [MSFT]]

A friend of mine has a laptop that was given to him. This laptop cam from
a corporate setting, and that company has since gone belly up. He can only
log in to the one user account; the Administrator password is unknown, and
he has no system disks. It used to be part of a domain, but we tried
telling it to belong to a workgroup instead of a domain since it is only
used at home. Oops. It asked to be rebooted, and then when we tried
logging on with the same username and password, it would tell us that the
username, password, or domain is wrong. We can't get back in to tell it to
rejoin a domain. Is it hopeless? Is there any way to salvage the laptop,
or should a new OS be installed?

Thanks,
Shawn

Shawn,

If your friend did not receive any CDs for the operating system or any
paperwork for it then the license to use Windows on that laptop has not been
transferred with that laptop to your friend.
He should regard the laptop as a piece of hardware given to him without any
software, and should go out and purchase an opertaing system and any other
packages he wishes to use on that device.
He can then install from fresh.

--

Regards,

Mike
--
Mike Brannigan [Microsoft]

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