Windows XP password help?!

[2old4this!]

Please - someone - help me!!!!

My bloke can't get into his computer, cos, well basically he was nutted and, subsequently paranoid, and decided to change his Windows XP password. The one for the main Windows XP screen u get when u switch on. Not just once, but a few times (yes he's a nob. But he's my nob and i love him, ok!)
There is no option on this screen to ask for help or request a new password. It just keeps saying "have you forgotten your password? Please enter your password again, check for spelling, caps lock, blah blah blah" There is no other option ie "YES! I HAVE FORGOTTEN MY BLOODY PASSWORD AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

Please help me to get him in his computer, he's getting well aggro with it, threatening to just rebuild it again (does this every time it won;t do what he wants lol!) Seems extreme to me.
Does anyone know what to do in this situation?? He can't be the only twit to forget his main password!!!!
Many thanks in advance, meanwhile its going to be a long night, i can see that!!
:rant:

[General Lighting]

I was told by a relative that some versions of XP have a backdoor (or an oversight by the user when setting up) whereby there is an account with the userid Administrator and a blank password; which you can get to by starting the machine up in Safe Mode. He has tried this on another machine in our building and it worked.

Alternatively there is a (rather more complicated) solution which involves booting the machine via a floppy with a Linux kernel, mounting the C: drive as a Unix volume and then accessing the NT password file and blanking out an administrator account password.

Unfortunately I have forgotten the name of this utility as it was ages ago when I last did this, and TBH I would not suggest trying tricks like this unless you know what fully understand what the above means (there is all manner of dodgy malware about these days posing as "hackers tools"

and I have not tried the "safe mode" backdoor (apparently it only works on Win XP home anyway).

sorry I can't provide more definite ideas (any other XP users found a better tool for doing this?)

[2old4this!]

Thanks GL, we're stil on the case, of course its a little more tricky now, as we haven;t slept , the day can only get curiouser!:crazy_fre :alien_abd :bigsmile:

[2old4this!]

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor (http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/)

Cheers mate! Will hang on to that 4 future reference :smile:

[Raj]

failing all this there is a facility for making a rescue disk specially for forgotten passwords

check the microsoft knowledge articles online as i seem to remember its there too as well as in the help files for XP; hacking the registry is a bit hardcore for the inexperienced!

good luck and remember to take a break if you are getting really frustrated :groucho:

[noname]

if you hit CTRL/ALT/DEL in the user selection screen, it will put you into standard mode instead of fast user switching mode, then try entering "Administrator" in the user name field. This assumes you haven't been using the admin account all along for everyday use.

If you entered an admin pass when setting up, put that in here.

Course if you changed that when you changed the other, you could be a bit buggered.

Best bet then is to do a reinstall over the top of the old install. That should keep all your old files etc, but still allow you to change the pass...