Forgotten Vista Password

[Le Pen]

Hello,

No2 daughter has forgotten the password for her laptop. Of course, it's my fault because I didn't let her take it on holiday and now, 5 weeks later, she cant remember the blooming thing.

OK, she has Vista HP.

I've tried the old F8/safe mode start up trick but it still asks for a password. Does anyone have any ideas for a quick, easy and FREE solution to this that does not involve reloading windoze and deleting the 249.9999Gb of junk she has!

Many thanks in advance from a grateful dad.

LP

[Saab Dastard]

If you don't know either the user password OR the admin password (check that administrator password isn't simply blank), then you need some form of password "recovery" utility, such as Trinux.

Trinux is simply a bootable CD with a stripped-down linux with various utilities, among them is the ability to modify the SAM database (containing the user passwords) on Windows NTFS system disks. Certainly works on XP and Windows server, though I've never tried it on Vista.

There are probably lots more similar (free) utilities, but that one I use!

Edit to add that you don't revcover the password, you simply reset it. Simplest is to make it blank.

SD

[Shunter]

Ahh yes, but that presumes you entered a hint when you were asked to....

I use this:
Offline NT Password & Registry Editor
for resetting passwords, although as mentioned the most reliable method is to set it to a blank password. It's not the most intuitive tool, so use with care!

[Le Pen]

Thank you all for your kind help......

In the end I cracked and re installed wondoze!

Much to the delight of myself and Mrs LP.....

No 2 Daughter now says she wont password her stuff ever again!

Thanks again

LP