Windows XP Professional Log On to Windows Screen

[Guest]

At the Log On to Windows Screen when tryingto start up my computer, it is
asking me for a password. I dont remember creating a password, and tried
everything that i know that it could be, to no avail. I was told that i could
find the iinformation here or I could reformat my computer, but I dont want
to loose all the things that I have on y computer. I tried to log in
administrator in the safe mode, though that option is not available.... What
can I do~ Desperate

 

[Claymore]

At the Log On to Windows Screen when tryingto start up my computer, it is
asking me for a password. I dont remember creating a password, and tried
everything that i know that it could be, to no avail. I was told that i could
find the iinformation here or I could reformat my computer, but I dont want
to loose all the things that I have on y computer. I tried to log in
administrator in the safe mode, though that option is not available.... What
can I do~ Desperate

Have you tried to start in Safe Mode and log into the Administrator
account.
Passwords can be controlled from there in Control Panel => User
Accounts.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

At the Log On to Windows Screen when tryingto start up my computer, it is
asking me for a password. I dont remember creating a password, and tried
everything that i know that it could be, to no avail. I was told that i
could
find the iinformation here or I could reformat my computer, but I dont
want
to loose all the things that I have on y computer. I tried to log in
administrator in the safe mode, though that option is not available....
What
can I do~ Desperate

In XP Pro, you don't have to go to Safe Mode to get to the Administrator
account. Restart, and at the Welcome screen, if Administrator isn't
displayed, press control+alt+delete, perhaps twice. You'll get an
older-style logon box. Type "Administrator" as the username, and leave the
password blank, and press Enter. Often, this will get you in, and you can
go to Control Panel, Users, and reset your user password.

If that doesn't work, you can find password reset utilities on teh Web,
usually as part of Linux disks.

NOTE, however, that since this is XP Pro, you must stop and consider whether
you decided to be ultra-secure and use encryption - this is not the same as
marking folders private.

If you did this, you may not have backed up the account certificates, since
this isn't required.

If you invoked encryption, and change the password from outside of the
account, you will instantly and permanently lose any chance of accessing the
encrypted data.

If you think that you might have used encryption, stop. Get another hard
disk, remove yours, install fresh. Re-attach your old drive and copy the
data back. Then, at your leisure, you can try to figure out what happened
to your data and how to get to it. But if you make changes to the account,
you will *never* get encrypted data back.

The upside is that if you have no idea what this part is about, you probably
didn't do this.

HTH
-pk

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Have you tried to start in Safe Mode and log into the Administrator
account.
Passwords can be controlled from there in Control Panel => User
Accounts.

Have to point out that changing passwords in this way (from outside the
account) can be a spectacularly bad plan in XP Pro, if encryption was
invoked. It renders the encrypted data instantly and (in most cases)
permanently inacessible.

HTH
-pk

 

[Guest]

Yes, you should try booting into safe mode. When the login screen appears,
there should be a user named Administrator. This user name does not appear
by default but it can be seen in safe mode. Log into this account and then go
into User accounts from Control Panel. Change the password if you know your
previous one or if you don't remember it, you might try creating a new user
account.

 

[Gordon]

Yes, you should try booting into safe mode.

Don't need to in XP Pro.....