One of my mother’s coworkers gave her their laptop for me troubleshoot. They didn’t provide a password, and I don’t want to bother them on Easter Sunday. Is there any way for me to get into the local admin account or any other way into the machine? Thanks in advance.
4 Spice ups
Nope. If there were then passwords wouldn’t be very good security.
1 Spice up
gb77787
(gb5102)
3
Use the ‘sticky keys password reset’ method(google it) to get a command prompt. Then use net user command to create a new user account, finally use net localgroup command to add the new user to Administrators group
Please note that resetting the password from an account other than the corresponding user account always means that the user loses the credentials stored in the Windows Vault, stored Internet Explorer passwords, and files that you encrypted with the Encrypting File System (EFS). Of course, if you have a backup of these credentials, you can restore them; likewise, if you have exported the private EFS key, you can import it again after you have reset the password.
Before you take a chance on losing your mom’s co-worker’s files and/or passwords, you may want to ensure you don’t use any existing accounts.
2 Spice ups
gb77787
(gb5102)
5
Yes- do not reset the password on existing account, create a new one.
Thanks for all the replies, but it looks like logging in won’t be necessary. I pulled the HD to at least test for disk integrity or viruses, and it’s failing all the HD tests.
1 Spice up
peter
(peter)
7
hopefully they had a backup of the data and you just need a new hard drive
NTOffline bootcd and clear Administrators password. (and re-activate if default is disabled)
reboot into windows using default Administrator, once in set a new Administrator password.
Job done, access granted within 30 seconds.
FYI works with every iteration of Windows from 95 right up to Server 2008 (havnt tried W2k12 yet) as long as disk encryption is not enabled.
NTOffline is sole reason i password protect each systems Bios with a secure password and set only HDD as boot device.
NTOffline boot stick locked in IT firesafe!
1 Spice up
For future reference… if you need to get in, but don’t want to reset the password, there is a way. Used to be free, but apparently no longer is. You boot with this and it just bypasses local login password requests. Handy if you need to get in quickly and don’t want to change anything.
