Forgot Admin Pw : Post for Roomie

[GuyOnTilt]

My roommate just got back from a weeks-long vacation to find he has completely forgotten his admin pw on XP. We've tried some things and have googled and found a couple tricks, but nothing's seemed to worked. Anybody had this problem before and find a solution besides reinstalling a new OS?

Thanks.

GoT

[IHateKeithSmart]

If he (or you) is familiar (or even not so familiar) with Linux, there are some bootable CDs you can use to recover lost admin password from Windows machines. They use tools similar to this (http://www.grape-info.com/doc/win2000srv/security/ntpasswd.html) . (Actually, this one looks like you can run it from a bootable floppy, if you still have one).


Knoppix std (http://www.knoppix-std.org/) (Security Tools Distribution) can do this.

The Auditor's toolkit (http://new.remote-exploit.org/index.php/Auditor_main) can probably also do this.

[GuyOnTilt]

Thanks. This seems pretty complicated. Can anyone walk us through the process?

Thanks.

GoT

[IHateKeithSmart]

Yeah, it's probably a bit of a hassle if you're not a Unix person. Can you download and burn iso files? If so, I would suggest downloading the iso file here (http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/cd050303.zip) .

Then, follow the steps starting with 'How to Use' on this (http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/) page. Chances are you'll be able to accept most of the defaults, and it should work for you.

There may be some easier ways (I don't think so though), but I am a unix and security person, so this is what I do.