Startup Password W2K

[Guest]

Hi All,

I have a machine running W2K SP4 which appears to have been configured by someone to require a Startup Password. Has anyone seen this before?

The machine is on a domain but doesn't even reach the CTRL-ALT-DEL screen.

Thx in advance.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi All,

I have a machine running W2K SP4 which appears to have been configured by

someone to require a Startup Password. Has anyone seen this before?

The machine is on a domain but doesn't even reach the CTRL-ALT-DEL screen.

Thx in advance.

You are presumably talking about the BIOS password. Every PC has one of
those but they are seldom used. Remove the motherboard battery, wait 15
minutes, then put it back in again. This should clear the password.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

What you are seeing is called syskey. 310105 How to Use the SysKey

Utility to Secure the Windows 2000 Security

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310105 If you do not know the password,

you will have to reinstall Windows. Sorry.

Interesting stuff, but apparently Petter Nordahl's trusty old Linux boot
disk can even get around syskey - see
http://is-it-true.org/nt/atips/atips262.shtml. I just tried it on my
machine, and it worked. In view of the explicit warnings I recommend that
you first create an image of your system partition.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all your responses

FYI: I managed to circumvent the SYSKEY password requirement by restoring a backup registry copy I had taken prior to the SYSKEY program being run. I am also looking into setting a software policy as suggested from a previous post, hopefully this will prevent any non-approved software from running

Thanks agai
Fran