MAL said:
With all due respect, I was hoping to not have to reinstall. Computer is old.
There is absolutely no need to reinstall - at least not because of the
password issue.
If you have forgotten your password, if you have another user account
with administrative privileges you can log into that account and change
your original user account's password from the User Accounts applet in
Control Panel. If you don't have another account like this set up or
don't have the password to it, you'll need to log into the built-in
Administrator account. In XP Home, boot the computer into Safe Mode. Do
this by repeatedly tapping the F8 key as the computer is starting up.
This will get you to the right menu. Navigate using your Up arrow key;
the mouse will not work here. Once in Safe Mode, you will see the
normally hidden Administrator account. The default password is a blank.
In XP Pro, you do not need to go into Safe Mode. At the Welcome Screen,
do Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get the classic Windows logon box. Type in
"Administrator" and whatever password you assigned when you set up Windows.
If you reset the built-in Administrator account's password in Home or
have Pro and don't remember the password, use NTpasswd to change the
built-in Administrator account's password to a blank.
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
Then go to the User Accounts applet in Control Panel and set passwords
that you will remember and make other desired changes.
Malke
