audassity said:
My daughter has brought her ancient laptop out of mothballs and wanted to
use it, but can't remember the password. OS is Windows 2000 professional.
Once she boots up, even in safe mode, she has to put in a password before
the computer fully boots up.
Any solutions?
I assume she has forgotten the *Windows* password and this is not a BIOS
password. With a BIOS password, you need to enter it before Windows will
even boot. So, assuming the foregoing is correct:
If she wasn't using the built-in Administrator, she could type in
"Administrator" and whatever password she assigned when she set up Windows.
If she was using Administrator as a daily user account and has no other
user accounts with administrative privileges, she'll need to use NTpasswd
to change the built-in Administrator account's password to a blank.
Download the bootable CD .iso, burn with third-party burning software (as
an image, not as data), boot with the media created. She may need to change
the boot order in the BIOS or get a temporary boot order menu with a
special keypress. NTpasswd will run. Follow the instructions carefully.
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
After she's finished with NTpasswd, she should remove the CD and reboot the
computer. Log into the Administrator account with a blank password and from
there change passwords as desired.
Malke
