account lockout

[Roberto de Cornieille]

I have an XP Pro system here that somehow the owner has set all the user
accounts to disabled so cannot logon even in safe mode using the
default Admin account.
I have a Linux based Admin password reset CD which I thought would
solve the problem no luck though, it says it is removing passwords and
reenabling the user account but it doesn't work on rebooting into
Windows.
Is there another way of gain access to this machine without formatting
and starting from scratch, it is a Compaq Evo notebook with an OEM
version of Windows, so don't believe I can boot to the recovery
console with a "normal" XP CD and do a repair install.

rgds
Roberto

 

[Malke]

I have an XP Pro system here that somehow the owner has set all the user
accounts to disabled so cannot logon even in safe mode using the
default Admin account.
I have a Linux based Admin password reset CD which I thought would
solve the problem no luck though, it says it is removing passwords and
reenabling the user account but it doesn't work on rebooting into
Windows.
Is there another way of gain access to this machine without formatting
and starting from scratch, it is a Compaq Evo notebook with an OEM
version of Windows, so don't believe I can boot to the recovery
console with a "normal" XP CD and do a repair install.

Which Linux-based password utility are you using? If you are using
NTpasswd (my preference) and the password is not resetting, you're doing
it wrong. You need to press the * key to make the password blank. The
new blank password won't be written to the system until you've quit (Q)
and answered Y to writing the change. If you're using something else,
try NTpasswd.

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


Malke

 

[Guest]

I have an XP Pro system here that somehow the owner has set all the user
accounts to disabled so cannot logon even in safe mode using the
default Admin account.

Even the inbuilt Admin account?

 

[Roberto de Cornieille]

Malke
your a legend !!!!
I don't have any documentation for the reset utility so didn't realise
one needed to enter * as the blank password value
thanks XXX

rgds
Roberto

I have an XP Pro system here that somehow the owner has set all the
user accounts to disabled so cannot logon even in safe mode using
the default Admin account.
I have a Linux based Admin password reset CD which I thought would
solve the problem no luck though, it says it is removing passwords
and reenabling the user account but it doesn't work on
rebooting into Windows.
Is there another way of gain access to this machine without
formatting and starting from scratch, it is a Compaq Evo notebook
with an OEM version of Windows, so don't believe I can boot to the
recovery console with a "normal" XP CD and do a repair install.

Which Linux-based password utility are you using? If you are using
NTpasswd (my preference) and the password is not resetting, you're doing
it wrong. You need to press the * key to make the password blank. The new
blank password won't be written to the system until you've quit (Q) and
answered Y to writing the change. If you're using something else, try
NTpasswd.

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


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

 

[Roberto de Cornieille]

thanks for the response, the default admin account had a blank password
but was diasbled[ along with the other 3 accounts]

rgds
roberto

 

[Malke]

Malke
your a legend !!!!
I don't have any documentation for the reset utility so didn't realise
one needed to enter * as the blank password value
thanks XXX

It actually does tell you to do this in NTpasswd but it is easy to miss.
I'm glad you got it sorted. Thanks for taking the time to post back.


Malke