So my father's girlfriend's son's laptop has been given to me. No one can remember his password on it.
Anyone knows what I can do to access it? If I can keep the files already in it, it'd be better, but deleting everything isn't much of an issue.
It's a DELL, inspiron 1520, Windows Vista.
None.
An artist's depiction of an Extended Unit Death
Here's the easy way: boot into safe mode and log in to the administrator account (this account is hidden on a normal boot), and reset/remove the account password from there.
If the administrator account is disabled, or if your father's girlfriend's son was tech-savvy enough to put a password on that as well, things become more complicated. You can boot
BartPE and use a
Password Renew tool to remove the password on the account.
Or you can simply reinstall the operating system without formatting; you'll only lose system configuration settings and maybe some programs, but places like "My Documents" will still be intact. Hell, I'd upgrade it to Windows 7 while you're at it.
We can't explain the universe, just describe it; and we don't know whether our theories are true, we just know they're not wrong. >Harald Lesch
As usual Roy offers excellent advice.
The only thing I have to add is an easier way to remove the password from the account:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/gr/offlinentpwed.htm
Would this keep everything in the Disc, and -only- reset the password?
None.
An artist's depiction of an Extended Unit Death
I restarted under Safe Mode, and it shows the exact same thing where it asks for the account's password. I can't find any way of prompting the request for the 'admin' account. I tried Ctrl+Alt+Del+Del as well.
I guess I'll have to use Nude's method as it seems to be the 2nd easiest?
None.
It worked great! Thanks!
One weird thing was that the account it was prompting a password for at the login screen was "Bob", but it never showed up when I was supposed to select the account during the process. Instead, there was a "Maude", which was not shown during that login screen. Weird.
However, it is the (changed) names of my father's girlfriend, so I guess it's normal in a way.
But yeah... thanks!
None.
Happy to hear you handle that successful.
For resetting the Windows Vista password, I've used the AppGeeker tool to blank the password.
http://www.appgeeker.com/guide/reset-windows-7-password.html
None.