Windows XP How Can I Reset My Password Without Rebooting

[mylarjorgen]

Dear Boffin, Tekkies and Geeks, can anyone fix it for me to reset my password without rebooting.

I got a virus (so had to reinstall XP sp2 but it was a nightmare to restart my machine, its like an old pony that walks ok but should never sit down. I am now in my system, everything's ok and I have admin rights but i cant remember the password i put in last night as i changed it upon advice.

I went to the pub last night whilst it was loading, then came back and put on some genius password with the few really dumb brain-cells that were still working, and now i cant remember it. I dont want to switch off and reboot with the password cleaners i have as i fear my old PIII 866 will never wake up again. I know i should get a new PC, but it's money i dont have to spare at the moment.

I considered fixing it by running the old No.5 iron, golf club fix, but i want to get my ubuntu up and working as well to see what that is like.

(e-mail address removed)

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I Know of the categories "software", "firmware" and "hardware", but is there one for "XXXXing impossibleware"

 

[Ian]

I don't know how you can do it without logging off, but this page should work if you do reset it

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321305

 

[Ian]

Actually, if you are already logged on - create another user account so at least you can access the system

 

[mylarjorgen]

Damn, that brilliant. I dont know why i didnt think of that myself. Superb stopgap, Thanks Ian

If simplicity is genius, i must surely be the cleverest man in the world

 

[mylarjorgen]

rebooted & cleared p/w but....

I was forced to reboot by an automated update trying to shutdown my pc every 15 minutes. The PC came back on ok, then I tried using 7tools, and when i clicked to clear Administrator, it changed to "BLANK", but then it hung, and when i rebooted, the password box was still there . Why was that, i thought i was logged on as the administrator???

so then i did it again and clicked on "clear all" and, although it hung when i clicked finish, after Ctrl+Alt+Del-ing, it did work and started up fine without a password screen.

My questions now are:

I cleared the following list:

aaa (this is the name of my computer)
Administrator
Guest
Help Assistant
Support_(six numbers)a0 (numbers withheld)

Which one was i using assuming a normal standard install? Was it aaa or Admin? When i look on my User list it shows aaa is the Computer Administrator.

Will Guest now be active or accesible? It shows guest account is Off.

What is "Help Assistant"?

What is "Support_blah blah blah"?

and Do i need to do something about the last two?


Any help would be grately appreciated. Thanks

 

[mylarjorgen]

Dont know why this is but when i tried to install from my XP disk on an old machine, it allowed it so i now have a working system again but i still want to go Linux if i can get it to work on my machine.