help forgot password on laptop

[kompost]

I use my mrs's old acer laptop for plotting routes etc with mapsource ,i haven't used it for ages ,but turned it on the other day and it said
your login password has expired please enter a new password ,trouble is you have to enter the old user name and password first and i don't remember either of them.
I've tried going into setup before it boots up but can't seem to sort it there.
I don't even remember having to use a password before to log in.
Anyone got any ideas?

 

[Blackal]

I use my mrs's old acer laptop for plotting routes etc with mapsource ,i haven't used it for ages ,but turned it on the other day and it said
your login password has expired please enter a new password ,trouble is you have to enter the old user name and password first and i don't remember either of them.
I've tried going into setup before it boots up but can't seem to sort it there.
I don't even remember having to use a password before to log in.
Anyone got any ideas?

Strange - it's not normal for Windows to state that a login password has expired??

It sounds more like it is set up to join a network on boot-up? Will it not boot in "safe mode" ?

Al

 

[kompost]

Strange - it's not normal for Windows to state that a login password has expired??

It sounds more like it is set up to join a network on boot-up? Will it not boot in "safe mode" ?

Al

How do you do that?

 

[judge]

Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home (with a small code change) can both be set to have user account passwords expire but only a machine used for work would usually bother with this to comply with a security policy.

In default mode a password is never forced to expire.

Sounds like its a works machine in which case you saviour may well be their IT department who will have a record of the Administrator password and can use this to get back into the machine.

 

[Blackal]

How do you do that?

Can't remember exactly - but my XP Pro laptop says "press F8 during startup"

It usually takes me a few attempts to see what options are available.............

As Judge says - best option could be to approach the IT dept, as it defo sounds like it is trying to join a network straight away (could be a Citrix network?)

Al

 

[SOAA]

If it is a works machine then as has already been suggested, go and see the IT Department to sort it out.

If however it is not a work machine then you could download THIS. Unzip the download and burn it as an image file to a CD.
How you do this will depend on what burning software you use, as an example, in Nero Burning ROM you would choose File, Open and then open the file.

There is a guide for using the CD once it has been burnt available HERE

 

[turbine_2]

Username and password? Old password would make sense (if you never needed to enter one it's probably blank) but it should keep the username in place (otherwise how would it know to check the password expiry). Are you sure this is the login box and not some malware?