Windows User Password

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jenny
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J

Jenny

I have a friend whose husband died suddenly. All of their financial records,
including tax preparation info, are stored on his laptop computer. His user
account is password protected, and she does not know the password. The
computer runs Windows XP, and there are no other user accounts. She has
tried all the likely guesses for the password, with no success. She searched
for a password reset disk, but that was apparently never done. Are there any
resources available to her that will allow her to access the information? I
know this sounds like some kind of scam, but it's legit, and she's in a
world of trouble. What should she do?
Thanks,
Jenny
 
Jenny said:
I have a friend whose husband died suddenly. All of their financial
records, including tax preparation info, are stored on his laptop
computer. His user account is password protected, and she does not know
the password. The computer runs Windows XP, and there are no other user
accounts. She has tried all the likely guesses for the password, with no
success. She searched for a password reset disk, but that was apparently
never done. Are there any resources available to her that will allow her
to access the information? I know this sounds like some kind of scam, but
it's legit, and she's in a world of trouble. What should she do?
Thanks,
Jenny
Click to expand...

It's very simple. Here's the boilerplate:

***
In XP Home, boot the computer into Safe Mode. Do this by repeatedly tapping
the F8 key as the computer is starting up. This will get you to the right
menu. Navigate using your Up arrow key; the mouse will not work here. Once
in Safe Mode, you will see the normally hidden Administrator account. The
default password is a blank.

In XP Pro, you do not need to go into Safe Mode. At the Welcome Screen, do
Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get the classic Windows logon box. Type in
"Administrator" and whatever password you assigned when you set up Windows.

If you reset the built-in Administrator account's password in Home or have
Pro and don't remember the password, use NTpasswd to change the built-in
Administrator account's password to a blank.

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

Then go to the User Accounts applet in Control Panel and set passwords that
you will remember and make other desired changes.
***

If you need more help for your friend, post back.

Malke
 
Jenny said:
I have a friend whose husband died suddenly. All of their financial records,
including tax preparation info, are stored on his laptop computer. His user
account is password protected, and she does not know the password. The
computer runs Windows XP, and there are no other user accounts. She has
tried all the likely guesses for the password, with no success. She searched
for a password reset disk, but that was apparently never done. Are there any
resources available to her that will allow her to access the information? I
know this sounds like some kind of scam, but it's legit, and she's in a
world of trouble. What should she do?
Thanks,
Jenny
Click to expand...


As noted, you can reset the password from the Admin account. There's a
huge BUT.

*However*, if this is XP Pro - not XP Home - and if encryption was invoked,
resetting the password this way will permanently block access to the
encrypted data.

So, before you change the password, go into the Admin account and try to
determine if encryption was invoked. If it was, do not change the password
in this way.

If encryption was invoked, remove the drive and clone it, and work from the
cloned drive. On the cloned drive, go into the Admin account, change the
password and/or take ownership of the files, and recover what you can. You
may find clues as to the password itself, which you are going to have to
have to recover encrypted data.

HTH
-pk
 
Patrick Keenan said:
As noted, you can reset the password from the Admin account. There's a
huge BUT.

*However*, if this is XP Pro - not XP Home - and if encryption was
invoked,
resetting the password this way will permanently block access to the
encrypted data.

So, before you change the password, go into the Admin account and try to
determine if encryption was invoked. If it was, do not change the
password
in this way.

If encryption was invoked, remove the drive and clone it, and work from
the
cloned drive. On the cloned drive, go into the Admin account, change the
password and/or take ownership of the files, and recover what you can.
You
may find clues as to the password itself, which you are going to have to
have to recover encrypted data.

HTH
-pk
Click to expand...
Patrick -

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not a sophisticated user, so please forgive a
couple questions...
1) Regarding encryption - are your referring to encryption of selected files
and folders, or is there an addtional encryption of the password? I'm
familiar with file encryption, but have never used a user password, so I'm
not sure what's involved or what option are available.
2) If she is able to get into the Admin account, how would she go about
determining if encryption was invoked?
Thanks,
Jenny
 
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