Main password on Windows Vista

[Sue]

My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has Windows Vista.
When you turn on her laptop it comes up asking for a password straight away,
this is the one that she's forgotten.

I thought that I could make a reset password disc from a friends computer
who has Vista, but this doesn't work.

It allows me to put in a new password and question hint, but when I click
next it comes up with 'an error occured while wizard was attempting to set
the password for this user account'. Is this because I've copied it from
another computer??

Does anyone have any idea how I can change her password as I don't really
want to do a system restore as she has all her homework and pictures on there
and don't want her to loose it.

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Windows Key is an easy-to-use tool to gain access into any Windows
system if a login password is lost. The software allows you to reset passwords
in a matter of minutes:
http://www.lostpassword.com/windows.htm

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience -
Windows Vista Enthusiast

---------------------------------------------------------------

:

My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has Windows Vista.
When you turn on her laptop it comes up asking for a password straight away,
this is the one that she's forgotten.

I thought that I could make a reset password disc from a friends computer
who has Vista, but this doesn't work.

It allows me to put in a new password and question hint, but when I click
next it comes up with 'an error occured while wizard was attempting to set
the password for this user account'. Is this because I've copied it from
another computer??

Does anyone have any idea how I can change her password as I don't really
want to do a system restore as she has all her homework and pictures on there
and don't want her to loose it.

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

 

[Malke]

Windows Key is an easy-to-use tool to gain access into any Windows
system if a login password is lost. The software allows you to reset
passwords in a matter of minutes:
http://www.lostpassword.com/windows.htm

Why pay $45 for something that you can do for free with numerous Linux
utilities? The old standby - tried and true and free - NTpasswd.

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

I can't believe you don't know about this as it is posted in the MS
newsgroups constantly.

Malke

 

[Malke]

My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has Windows
Vista. When you turn on her laptop it comes up asking for a password
straight away, this is the one that she's forgotten.

I thought that I could make a reset password disc from a friends computer
who has Vista, but this doesn't work.

It allows me to put in a new password and question hint, but when I click
next it comes up with 'an error occured while wizard was attempting to set
the password for this user account'. Is this because I've copied it from
another computer??

Does anyone have any idea how I can change her password as I don't really
want to do a system restore as she has all her homework and pictures on
there and don't want her to loose it.

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

From your description of the issue - that a password is required immediately
upon turning on the computer - it sounds like your daughter set a
BIOS-level password and not a Windows password. However, your description
of what happens with the reset password disk would seem to indicate
otherwise. I simply cannot guess.

If this is a BIOS-level password, then contact the laptop mftr. about how to
reset this. Some laptops will allow you to change the BIOS password in
software; others require sending the machine back to the laptop mftr. so
that a chip on the motherboard can be reprogrammed.

If this is a Windows password, then you can change your daughter's password
to a blank with this free program:

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Once you are in the system, change her password to something she will
remember and WRITE IT DOWN SOMEWHERE SHE WILL NOT LOSE IT.

Malke

 

[Not Me]

My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has Windows
Vista.
When you turn on her laptop it comes up asking for a password straight
away,
this is the one that she's forgotten.

I thought that I could make a reset password disc from a friends computer
who has Vista, but this doesn't work.

It allows me to put in a new password and question hint, but when I click
next it comes up with 'an error occured while wizard was attempting to set
the password for this user account'. Is this because I've copied it from
another computer??

Does anyone have any idea how I can change her password as I don't really
want to do a system restore as she has all her homework and pictures on
there
and don't want her to loose it.

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

When you make a password reset disk on a certain computer, it is for the
user accounts on that machine.
Since the account on your daughters machine is different, the disk made on
another machine doesn't find the account it is made to reset, thus the
error.
There are password reset disks that you can make that work on most
computers.
I use a bootable Linux CD that bypasses Windows entirely and allows the
password to be reset.
The problem is, it will work for stolen computers as well as your own.
If you do a Google search on it, you can find the downloadable image to burn
to CD to reset the password.

 

[Sue]

Dave

Thanks for your response. Might be being extremely thick here but I can't
get it to work. I've copied the ISO file to a DVD but nothing comes up on my
daughter's laptop. I turn on the computer, put the DVD in, shut down the
computer and restarted it saying reboot from CD/DVD but nothing it just
brings up the first page asking for her password.

Have I done anything wrong??