Re: Lost Admin PW in XP home

RC wrote:
A few weeks ago, I started getting a log on screen on my home PC. The IT people at work told me this was due to my d/lding normal XP updates. I bought the PC from Dell, have the original XP CD so I'm not trying to hack into anything. I am the only one usiong the PC so I don't want/need any PW's.

In trying to fix this (deleting the log on screen), I screwed something up. I can't get into my regular files as I don't have he PW. The guest account I have set up, as you know is useless

I went into the safe mode and tried changing my PW as the Adminstrator. No joy. I thought there was a command called controlpasswords2 or something like that but I can't access it. That's where I originally got into trouble trying to delete my log on screen, I know I screwed something up there.

I am comfortable enough in the registry but don't know my best option there. I have the original CD and tried a "fix/repair but could not do that.

I do not want to reformat and reinstall. I am a little nervous about using the NT proggie talked about on another thread but I will listent to anyone's input. My IT people at work can't help me, but thankfully they told me there are a few security issues in XP home (I also have SP2) that there may be a work around. Any advice would be apprecaited.

The login screen came about probably because you installed something requiring the .Net 1.1 framework. Simply going to Windows Update and patching .Net would have taken care of that for you. Or setting the computer to automatically log into your Desktop with control userpasswords 2 per:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) - http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

I'm honestly unsure of what you've done. What does "no joy" mean about going into Safe Mode and changing your user account's password from there? Does this mean that you went into Safe Mode and were unable to get into the built-in Administrator account? Or you were able to get into the built-in Administrator account but for some reason couldn't change your user account's password? If the latter, what happened when you tried?

There is no reason to be nervous about using NTpasswd. It is normally used to change the built-in Administrator's password to a blank so you can log into that account and make changes to it or other accounts (or just get into Windows for other reasons).

There are no "security issues" in XP Home that will create a workaround (workaround for what?) so I'm not sure what your IT people are talking about. Post back with a clearer description of exactly what you've done, answering my questions above, and we can take it from there.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
.

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