lost password

[happy pilgrim]

i bought my daughter a pc to help with homework , but she has lost/forgotten her password? is there anyway to factory reset it or sililar??
running on windows 2000

 

[Taff]

This won't help you directly, but it will be a useful for when your problem is sorted. A good piece of advice I was given years ago was to use the same password for everything eg e-bay, hotmail e-mail, work computers, Excel Spreadsheets, Word documents etc etc. Trying to remember different passwords for different uses is asking for trouble.

 

[ovenpaa]

i bought my daughter a pc to help with homework , but she has lost/forgotten her password? is there anyway to factory reset it or sililar??
running on windows 2000

This will do it:

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

Edit - scroll down to Download section and use the top zip - it will allow you to create a bootable CD image, or the one below which is for a diskette

 

[cookie]

This won't help you directly, but it will be a useful for when your problem is sorted. A good piece of advice I was given years ago was to use the same password for everything eg e-bay, hotmail e-mail, work computers, Excel Spreadsheets, Word documents etc etc. Trying to remember different passwords for different uses is asking for trouble.

not terribly secure though.

 

[ovenpaa]

not terribly secure though.

Heh! That is an understatement! - why do people use the same password 10 times over, and it is usually the cats name or first child and if it is any more complex than a few characters they add it to a post it and stick on the screen

I always say 9 characters alpha numeric non dictionary, not so hard to remember as it can be a simple phrase like h3ll0y0u (Hello You)

IBM used to be a scary place to work in, people used to leave Domain Admin passwords out on post its but lock mouse mats away at lunchtime...

 

[happy pilgrim]

thanks Ovenpaa
i have downloaded the windows key onto floppy but how do you open it if you can't use the keyboard?

 

[ovenpaa]

thanks Ovenpaa
i have downloaded the windows key onto floppy but how do you open it if you can't use the keyboard?

Erm, have I missed something here? Is your keyboard USB driven?

 

[happy pilgrim]

pc is locked so downloaded password software onto another unlocked pc and saved it to a floppy disk?
then took floppy disk to locked machine ,but what are you supposed to do then?

 

[ovenpaa]

pc is locked so downloaded password software onto another unlocked pc and saved it to a floppy disk?
then took floppy disk to locked machine ,but what are you supposed to do then?

you should check the machine is set to boot to Diskette first via BIOS, then insert the diskette and restart, is it locked at this point?

 

[Taff]

not terribly secure though.

Its as secure as any other password surely. No password is secure if you tell everybody else what it is or stick it on a post-it note on the sreen.

And I know .. stop calling me Shirley.

 

[Fanum]

Its as secure as any other password surely. No password is secure if you tell everybody else what it is or stick it on a post-it note on the sreen.

And I know .. stop calling me Shirley.

No, 'cos it's easy to break a 'proper name' password.

There are progs that you can fire at a password box that will try out every 'real word' from a dictionary, then try all the names it knows.....some will then go on to try 'Shirley1', 'shirley2' 'shirley3' etc etc.......it's only a matter of time (and a surprisingly short time at that) before it gets in.

A mixture of numbers and letters, plus maybe a symbol, might well never be found.....

Just for a giggle I cracked two passwords here.......one was his wife's name and the other was his bike registration......but they were in the first five things I tried on his login name

 

[cookie]

Its as secure as any other password surely. No password is secure if you tell everybody else what it is or stick it on a post-it note on the sreen.

And I know .. stop calling me Shirley.

more to the point, get one password, get them all.

might be easy to crack windows password or get password for site like this. if it's the same as your bank account...

 

[Clive]

If you are going to use the same password for "everything" it is fairly easy to create a "good" password that you can also remember by using the first letter of each word in a phrase (you can remember of course) that also doesn't make up a real dictionary word.

e.g.

Winnie The Pooh Is A Stupid Name For A Bear

wtpiasnfab

you can make it more difficult for a brute force cracker by adding numerics - try and tie them to the phrase to make it easier to remember

e.g.

King Harold Got An Arrow In The Eye

khgaaite1066

Just don't use biat2007 for here though