Windows Vista Password

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Inertia

I feel like I could... TAKE ON THE WORLD!!
As hers is the only account with Admin status, I guess this would be a no no then.
Ah, my mistake, I thought you were trying to access the built in Admin account, which was separate from hers
 

lozcs

Guru
Location
Wychbold
I've used this a couple of times with no problems...

http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

If that scares you then I'd also suggest booting linux and transferring files or putting HDD in another PC (as suggested as long as not encrypted)
 
OP
OP
GetAGrip

GetAGrip

Still trying to look cool and not the fool HA
Location
N Devon
Update - Password eventually remembered, what's a misplaced 'space' here or there, heh!

I took the opportunity though, to speed things up a bit and remove the twenty odd embedded trojans etc. (according to spybot). In the end it seemed easier to back up her files and reset Vista back to it's factory settings.
After hours and hours of updating stuff and reloading her precious video & music files, I handed her back a faster and better tempered piece of kit, that hopefully, will last another year or so.
Oh, I forgot to mention the password protected admin account I created, should history repeat itself.
Thanks to everyone for their good advice offered!!!!!
 

PpPete

Legendary Member
Location
Chandler's Ford
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/passrecovery.htm

My recommendation would be to use this one
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/gr/offlinentpwed.htm

its command line but fairly straightforward, use this disc to reset the administrator account password.
WORD OF WARNING. reseting a password like this can lose the documents of THAT account, so reseting the admin password may lose anything on the desktop and documents of the admins account. Other users desktops and documents should be fine.

So dont reset her password or you will lose her work.

If you are wary of this you can try ophcrack, I havent tried it but it is meant to be more user friendly, there is a good guide here
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/gr/ophcrack.htm

I've had a similar problem to the OP but with rather less urgency attached.
Ophrcrack found all the 3 users on the machine in question - but despite running for a long time in hte end decided it had failed to find any of the passwords.
Offline NT Password & Registry Editor worked a treat (once I followed the instructions rather than just blundering though thinking I "probably" knew the right answers)
 
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