Forgotten Administrator Password

[Catie]

I just came back from a vacation, and I forgot my
password to get onto my desktop. It's the only windows
account on my computer, and I don't have a floppy drive,
so I can't use a password reset disk. Is there any way to
recover and/or get rid of my password without having to
reinstall windows?

I have windows XP home edition. I don't know which SP,
but I got it last July...

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

You likely didn't create a password for this hidden account
during setup and if the computer was purchased with XP pre-installed it
doesn't likely have one either,

If you have Home, boot into Safe Mode (F8 after the post test and before
Windows starts. Once Windows starts loading, you've missed it and will have
to try again). You'll have an option to log on as Administrator, this is a
hidden machine admin account and you likely didn't create a password for
this hidden account during setup and if the computer was purchased with XP
pre-installed it
doesn't likely have one either,

You'll be asked to log in to get into safe mode, type
administrator, leave the password blank and press enter.

This will get you in. Then go to Control Panel, user accounts, select the
specific user and select change password.