Windows Passwords

[bookie]

I have been on my new computer w/ Vista for about a year. On my old
computer, which crashed, I never set a Windows (98)password since its just my
wife and I.

I was considering setting the password as Administrator but am concerned
about something going wrong w/ logging on even though it looked like the
password was correctly set. I have read selected portions of "Windows Vista
for Dummies", and, from what was said, the best remedy is for me to create a
dual user of myself as a 2nd Administrator. The rationale for this approach
was suggested by the book was
that another administrator can remove the password from the "troubled" user.
I am also familiar with creating the Password Reset Disk, but it seems that
working with this disk may be more cumbersome.

Has anyone experienced any troubles with logging on after creating a password?

Any thoughts?

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

There are boot disks available to reset the default admin, or any other user
password to blank.

Offline NT pw & reg-editor, bootdisk password:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

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Mark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
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[bookie]

Dear Mark,

I appreciate your taking the time to present a very credible approach to
this type of problem, which I currently don't immediately face but could bite
me at some unexpected time!

I scanned your link, and because of my general lack of knowledge of
registries and other internal components of Windows, I feel really challenged
if I were to have to
traverse a minefield of critical choices. For the expert computer guru, it
is probably a "piece of cake".

For my edification, what would be the reason why my suggested approach of
creating a 2nd Administrator for the purpose of choosing "me" as the basic
Administrator of my computer to just remove the password would not work in
allowing me then to log on? Would there possibly a problem that Windows would
still block me from entering? Currently, I have no password and never
created one.
Everything has worked fine, but I was anticipating having relatives come in
later this month. Maybe, the more practical solution is to unplug my
computer and disconnect the mouse, etc. while the visitors are there.

Sincerely,

 

[Malke]

Dear Mark,

I appreciate your taking the time to present a very credible approach to
this type of problem, which I currently don't immediately face but could
bite me at some unexpected time!

I scanned your link, and because of my general lack of knowledge of
registries and other internal components of Windows, I feel really
challenged if I were to have to
traverse a minefield of critical choices. For the expert computer guru,
it is probably a "piece of cake".

For my edification, what would be the reason why my suggested approach of
creating a 2nd Administrator for the purpose of choosing "me" as the basic
Administrator of my computer to just remove the password would not work in
allowing me then to log on? Would there possibly a problem that Windows
would
still block me from entering? Currently, I have no password and never
created one.
Everything has worked fine, but I was anticipating having relatives come
in
later this month. Maybe, the more practical solution is to unplug my
computer and disconnect the mouse, etc. while the visitors are there.

I'm not Mark, but I don't think he'll mind if I pop in. Here's what you
should do:

1. Create a Standard user account for your daily work. If you already have
an administrator account that you're using, change it to a Standard account
*after* doing #2 below. Assign a password to this account. Write it down
somewhere, *not* on a yellow post-it note stuck onto the monitor.

2. Create at least one extra Administrator user account. Call it "CompAdmin"
or "Tech" or the like. This account is for elevation and emergency
purposes. Assign a password to this account. It can be the same one you
used for yours, as long as any guests staying with you can't guess it
easily. You will not be logging into this account unless there is an
emergency and your regular account gets corrupted.

3. Create a Standard user account called "Visitor" without a password.
Guests should use that account.

You will be fine.

Even if you plan on disconnecting the computer and hiding the mouse, etc.
when your guests come, you should still do #1 and #2 above.

Malke

 

[bookie]

--
bookie in Md.



I decided to implement your suggestions, which are also presented in the
"Windows Vista for Dummies" manual. This manual should be on every Vista
User's book shelf.

I would like to make a few observations which may be useful to other users
and as feedback to you since you probably don't know what has happened:

(1) I started by creating a test user account. I created a password
as well as the companion "Password Reset Disk", in which I used a floppy disk
drive. This disk is created in less than 30 seconds and only needs to be
created once even though the user may wish to change the password
occasionally. I practiced by intentionally putting in the "wrong" password,
and then I used the disk to create a new password. It is very simple.

(2) I created a "CompAdmin" User Account and designated it as
"Administrator. I then created a password and went through the same
procedure as in "(1)". Everything worked fine.

(3) I downgraded my User Account that was labeled as "Administrator"
as now "Standard". At first, I tried to created the password from here, but
it wouldn't allow me. Then, I remembered that I needed to log on "CompAdmin"
and create the password for this new "Standard" account, and this process
worked fine.

(4) One unsuspecting glitch happened when I logged onto my regular
user account. When I clicked on "Windows Mail", a logon dialog window came
up asking me to enter my user name and password. It caught me off guard, and
I typed in the wrong password. I have Comcast and remembered that I gave the
Comcast Rep. a user name and password when they installed their ISP service.
Fortunately, the dialog window came up again, and, this time, I entered the
correct password, which now allowed incoming mail to proceed normally. Other
users should be aware that this could happen to them so have these data
available (the problem here is that since the user has set "remember" in
setting up the server tab in the mail routine such that we don't think of it
anymore.)

(5) I am glad that you recommended the use of the name "Visitor"
designated as Standard in lieu of using the "Guest" User that is preset in
the Control Panel. The reason I say this is that, when I turned the Guest
"on" and then logged on "Guest", my security software did not load. However,
when I created the "Visitor" account, the security software did load. This
apparent glitch with Guest not being protected could potentially produce
serious problems with the computer.

bookie