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Password Recovery

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by pnmnelson 2 views

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My nephew has Windows XP and to keep his sister out of his box he changed all the passwords to the user accounts. Well, he went away for a about a week and is back but can't remember any of the passwords. He also forgot to enable password hints. Is there any way to recover passwords when you are unable to login at the Welcome screen?

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by wcp

By default, the Administrator?s password was set to blank.
Boot Windows to Safe Mode and login as the Administrator with blank password.

If successful, reset all passwords.
If not, there are commercially available software that can reset any password.
There are a few freeware but you need to be very careful because they will not guarantee the system integrity after resetting a password.
Search Google with keywords: Windows XP, lost password, and recover.

by bcmathis

Going a little further with wcp's answer, there is a freeware program called Barts PE which is a Live! Bootable Windows CD located at nu2.nu. You will have to download the program, have a windows CD handy and compile a ISO image to burn to a CD. It sounds difficult, but its not. My brother who knows nothing about computers besides a little bit of graphic design, completed it in under 1 hour. Full instructions are available at the website.

Anyways, in Barts PE there is a tool called Password Recovery which allows you to change the password or any account, promote a user to administrator, or create a new administrator account.... really comes in handy when you need it.

let me know if this works for you!!!

by cg it

we use passware. It quarrentees to work and not mess up your system, with one caveat. that is encrypted files. Passware will reset the administrators account but you lose encrypted files for that account.

Passware is pricey, but works. you can even make a bootable CD.

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