Today, Nepatsfan made these interesting comments ...
You need to boot into Safe Mode and logon with the built-in
Administrator account. You will then be able to go into Control
Panel -> User Accounts and change the password on your account.
If you can bypass an account PW by simply booting into Safe Mode,
what's the point of having it in the first place? I understand
what you're saying, that the real Administrator account controls
all others, but IT should have the strongest PW on it to prevent
exactly what you're suggesting as a solution! Yeah, I understand
the OPs dilemma, that's their problem, but what if the laptop
gets stolen, do you really want the thief to extract all of your
confidential data this easy?
But, to cases, it sounds like the OP has a screen saver set to
display the Welcome screen when exiting and/or he forgot to
remember his PW one morning after getting in a hurry and shuting
the lid turning the PC off. Huh? Was the thing on for the last 5
years so it was never necessary to log back in? How can you
forget both the PW and the hint so fast?
To start in Safe Mode, reboot your computer and
start tapping the F8 key as soon as you see anything displayed
on the screen. Keep hitting F8 until the Advanced Startup
Options menu appears. Use the up and down arrow keys on your
keyboard to select Safe Mode. Hit Enter.
Note: If your laptop is configured to automatically logon your
account you'll need to hold down the Shift key while the
computer is booting into Safe Mode. This should bring up the
Welcome Screen. Once the Welcome Screen is displayed, click on
the icon for the Administrator account.
By default, the Admin account isn't shown on the Welcome screen,
unless the OP took conscious action to make it appear, which I'd
bet they didn't.
So it's keep hitting F8, select Safe Mode, hold down the Shift
key and logon with the Administrator account.
Good luck
Nepatsfan
I hope that others reading this thread will understand the
underlying purpose behind strong PWs - the name of the game is
security. What's the point of all the ersatz SP2 stuff if you can
bypass the whole schmeer this easily?
There /are/ ways to write down the PW and store it safely if your
brain can't retain it for a couple of hours, including but not
limited to, storing all of your account numbers for your credit
cards, SSAN, your various E-mail account PWs, software serial
number/unlock codes, and anything you put a PW on, including a
Word doc or a ZIP file into your bank's safety deposit box. Or,
you can consider buying an inexpensive encryption utility
stronger than what Windoze native has or WinZip has, write all
this stuff to a Notepad file, PW protect the file and encrypt it,
then store it on your HD, back it up to optical or external, and
take a printed copy to your bank. But, then, if you can't
remember a login PW, it is even less likely you'll remember the
file PW or encryption PW.
I've been out of the info security game for 4 1/2 years now, but
I used to be flummoxed beyond being astounded how dumb users can
be with confidential data on desktop PCs or CAD workstations,
much less them that travel around with a laptop under their arms.
Besides the really obvious stuff I already talked about, I failed
miserably at getting my management to understand the benefits of
the /very/ small cost of equiping each laptop with a hardware
device that renders the HD unreadable if the PC is stolen
specifically to get the data. Bet those idiots in the Veteran's
Administration wish they'd thought of that, and they have
Homeland Security and it thousands of spooks to help them!
