Re: Password question

Other things to do or try:

Do a parallel installation of Windows 2000 or install to a different drive/partition on the machine. That will allow you to retrieve the files.

From reading your posts I take it that the former employee left on not very good terms, or that he had a grudge. If the employee left on reasonably good terms and if you can contact him try to persuade him to give you the passwords. If he left on bad terms and if you know how to contact him, a letter from an attorney explaining to him that he willfully damaged company property and that you demand that he supply these passwords or you will take legal action might be enough to convince him to give up. The letter from the attorney shouldn't cost more than $100. Taking legal action would cost a lot of money so it would probably not be worth it unless these documents are deemed to be worth more. But even if you don't intent to pursue it any farther the $100 letter might yield the results you want.

Good luck,

John

Chris Hall wrote: 
Thanks, John. I had found the link you referred to, but had no luck. I'm
going to try one more time...I coulda done something wrong. After that, I'll
probably go with a commercial solution. The user that is no longer with us
was the IT Manager. I'll check the office group as you suggested...

"John John" <audetweld@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eoOnVxXAGHA.3804@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The only way he could have deleted the Admin account would have been to
be logged on as an Administrator.  In other words there is still an
administrator account on the machine.  Try this:

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

As for the Word docs try asking in the Office group or search the net
for password crackers for Word docs.  These ones might be hard to crack.
 You can also slave the drive in another machine if you just want to
retrieve files then wipe the drive and reinstall the operating system.

Now, I don't want to lecture you, and I know that the user might have
had a valid reason to be an Administrator or that he could have used a
password utility to gain access to the Administrator account.  But if
none of these apply you will have to review the security measures in
your organization.  NO users should have Administrator privileges unless
absolutely necessary!

John

Chris Hall wrote:


We have an employee that is no longer with the company. He deleted the 

local

administrator account and his pc is not joined to the domain. He also 

has

two Word docs that are password protected. I need to be able to access 

his

computer and these documents. Any suggestions? Tools/utilities?






.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Password questions/problems
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  • Re: Network setup problems
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    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.network_web)
  • Re: Administrator(s)
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    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin)
  • Re: Security using Sharepoint
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    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • RE: How do I change a protected document if I dont have a password? .
    ... There are tools available on the web that will crack Word passwords (among ... But if using a cracking tool is illegal or ... > A former employee has protected alot of documents that are needed in our ... Alot of them have to do with our ISO system. ...
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