Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: Hey Moe; Missing Password for vista question

  1. #1
    SOH Mod Lionheart's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    The land where dust is manufactured and people are high temp tested!
    Age
    51
    Posts
    11,786

    Hey Moe; Missing Password for vista question

    Hey Mike,

    I know you are in the computer biz. Have you ever ran into clients that had their password changed on their vista installations? Is there an easy way to find it or should one just reformat the thing? My brothers friend has had her password changed on her and cant get into it.

    Many thanks for any advice.



    Bill
    Humble Poly bender and warrior of Vertices

    <a href=http://www.prepar3d.com target=_blank rel=nofollow>http://www.prepar3d.com</a>

    iMac 24" Alum UniBody; Intel Core Duo 2.80 GHz;
    ATI Radeon HT 2600 XT; 1TB drive; 4 Gigs DDR Ram;
    Apple juice plasma injection system.

  2. #2
    Jr. Admin gigabyte's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Atlantic Canada
    Age
    55
    Posts
    2,031
    Hey Bill, I have run into this before, and there is a rather simple way to get around it as long as someone has not reset the Administrator password. They need to boot with the Vista Install disk (if they do not have one they can make a repair disk - and it is perfectally legal Microsoft posts the instructions on Technet and the ISO is hosted on many sites) and reset the Administrator account.

    I do have the full instructions somewhere, but basically all you do is boot to the repair console with the boot disk, do NOT select Install, select Repair my installation. You will now have access to a command console, change to the c:\windows\system32 folder and then enter the following command - "net user administrator /active:yes" now just exit the command prompt and reboot, you have done nothing other than turn on the Administrator account which is disabled by default. When the system boots select Administrator (unless someone deliberatly set a password there is none), you will now have full access to all admin functions, go to the Control panel and select Users, and change the password. Caution here watch the prompts, if the user folders are encrypted this can lock them up, and the user is SOL. The messaging is clear so if it warns against changing the password because the data will be locked STOP! Then what I would do is to use the ADministrator account to make a full backup of all the users docs, pics, music etc into the Public folder on the system - Admins can do anything! Then go back and change the PW, if the data gets locked blow it away and resotre you nice sae backup from the Public folder.

    I believe there are some very good step by step instructions at www.howtogeek.com which cover this and a huge number of other subjects, well worth a look it is a great site.

    One last thing DO NOT FORGET to disable that Administrator account (you can do it via Users icon in Control Panel before you reboot, or repeat above and change the Yes to a No on the command line) if you leave it active it leaves the system wide open to every nasty bug it gets. People $hit all over Vista for many things and User Access was a real PITA, however M$ did the right thing in disabling that Administrator account by default. I go one step further on all systems I set up, I change the name of the Administrator account, set a strong password then disable it, my users think I am paranoid, but our company got hit with a virus about this time last year and our region came out looking like a rose, most branches had to reimage all their PC's because of the infection (it reset the Administrator account) and I had only to do some clean up to remove the infected files.

    Edit: BTW the above applies to XP and Windows 7, if you boot to a command prompt with the Install or Repair disk and run the above command in the System32 folder you can activate a disabled Administrator account which will allow you to fix any number of sins committed by "Stupid User Tricks".
    Last edited by gigabyte; November 15th, 2009 at 12:15. Reason: add comment
    Regards,
    Mike "Ears Hopin" P.

    Freedom , everyone enjoys it, very few defend it. - If You Won't Stand Behind Our Troops then feel free to stand in front!

    _________________________________________________
    "Let Being Helpful Be More Important Than Being Right!"

  3. #3
    Senior Administrator hey_moe's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Hampton,Va
    Age
    58
    Posts
    4,251
    Why don't ya just hit the F8 key, go into safe mode and reset it.
    Asus Rampage Extreme Motherboard /EVGA AR GeForce GTX 295 1792MB 896 Bit GDDR3 /Corsair 8gig XMS DDR3/Intel Core 2 Extreme QX 9770 Yorkfield OCed 4.2 LGA 775/136W Quad Core / Water Cooled/ 2 WD Raptor 150gig 10,000 rpm Drives in Raid O Mode/WD Raptor 150gig internal back up/400 gig External WD back up Drive/Thermaltake 1200 Watt PS/Sony Dual Layer DVD RD/RW/Plextor DVD/RW/ Thermaltake Kandalf Tower/ Sound Blasters X-FI Platinum / X52 Pro

  4. #4
    SOH Mod Lionheart's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    The land where dust is manufactured and people are high temp tested!
    Age
    51
    Posts
    11,786
    Thanks guys. I'll relay this over to my brother.





    Bill
    Humble Poly bender and warrior of Vertices

    <a href=http://www.prepar3d.com target=_blank rel=nofollow>http://www.prepar3d.com</a>

    iMac 24" Alum UniBody; Intel Core Duo 2.80 GHz;
    ATI Radeon HT 2600 XT; 1TB drive; 4 Gigs DDR Ram;
    Apple juice plasma injection system.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. Missing password
    By olaf1924 in forum CFS2 General Discussion
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: July 16th, 2010, 04:41
  2. start menu and taskbar missing in vista
    By dmaloof in forum The NewsHawks
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: July 6th, 2010, 21:05
  3. Vista 64 Bit Question
    By fleas2 in forum CFS3 General Discussion
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: July 9th, 2009, 01:55
  4. Vista question....
    By JDTinballs in forum FS 2002/2004 General Discussion
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: June 29th, 2009, 00:59
  5. Vista on a new system question.
    By Gdavis101 in forum The NewsHawks
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: October 17th, 2008, 16:44

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  


Avsim - Flightsim - SimFlight - Simviation - iflyonline - CFS IP - Quarter Moon Saloon - Com-Central