How to Log on to Windows XP if You Forget Your Password Here is a simple way to access Windows XP with Administrator rights

and privileg es if you have password protected your User account on your Windows XP system an d can't remember the password(s) to login. Whenever Windows XP is installed on a system, it creates a default account called "Administrator" and by default this account is not password protected. Therefore, if you bought a brand name comput er (such as Dell, HP, Compaq or Sony)or you have installed Windows XP yourself. You should be able to login to the computer through the unprotected Administrato r account. Hide these ads Show Ads [edit] StepsReboot your machine. Press F8 before the Windows boot screen appears. Do not press F5 as used on the NT/9x series of Windows. You will be be prompted with a boot options menu. Select the Start Windows in Safe Mode option. Click through several self-explanatory screens until your reach the familiar 'We lcome' screen. Note that this welcome screen is limited to 256 colors and 640x480 resolution be cause the primary graphics will have been set to the Windows Safe Mode software VGA adapter. You will not be able to change this mode even in Display options, w hile Windows is running in Safe Mode. Find the icon for the Administrator user. If the default settings of your system haven't been changed, there should be no password for this account. The Safe Mode Welcome screen might display some of the other users on your syste m. Login as the admin. Press Yes at the prompt asking if you would like to continue using Safe Mode. Continue on to the User Settings control panel. Here you can change any of the o ther passwords for user on the machine. Make any changes you want. Reboot your computer. As long as you don't press any keys (i.e. F8) during the b oot-up the computer will startup normally. Login as the user for which you set the password. If it doesn't work above , you can try to use windows password reset 6.0 or OP HCrack (for free) to crack your windows password without erasing anything.

[edit] Method TwoLogin to a computer that can connect to the Internet. Download Windows Password Reset Tool and decompress it on that PC. Note that there is an .ISO file. Burn the .ISO file to a CD. Get out the newly created CD and insert it into the locked computer. Reboot the locked computer and then follow the process of instructions. Just a f ew steps, the old password was removed. Setting new password: Step one: Open the "Control Panel" Step two: Click the "User Account " Step three: Select the account you wanna to set a new password. Step four: Click "changing Account " and "set up password", then fill out the fo rm as listed. Click "Create Password".

Thus, you have a personal login ID and Password, anyone has no right to login to your computer without this info.

[edit] Video Hide these ads Show Ads How to recover a lost password in Windows XP

[edit] TipsYou can access the Administrator account through the login prompt wit hout logging into safe mode. If the computer utilizes the welcome screen instead of the standard NT domain login prompt, you can press Ctrl + Alt + Del twice to get to the login prompt. This is only true if you are running Windows XP Profes sional Edition. Windows XP Home Edition will also allow you to use this method t o log on. Some users are smart enough to password protect their Administrator account when they install windows. If that's the case, you'll have to know that password in order for this method to work. There is a way to crack the windows "SAM" and system files to retrieve the origi nal passwords Monitor, you need a program such as LC5 installed on a computer, a nd the SAM file in C:\WINDOWS\system32\config if LC5 is not installed on the com puter that you forgot disk because as soon as you can get into the hard drive, w indows is using the file so you cant copy it. Use SysInternals ERD Commandor to change the admin. password. Boot from the CD a nd select the locksmith option to change whatever password you like. Alas, this product seems to have been discontinued, however there are many other options ou t there for resetting the password so long as you are willing to spend a little money. Much simpler is simply to rename or delete the SAM file (renaming is safer). For this you need to boot the box using some other operating system on a CD and the n mount the drive (otherwise Windows locks the SAM file and won't let you touch it). NTFSDOS is also a good utility for this purpose. Find the SAM file and chan ge the first character. After you reboot, all the accounts are still there, but they all have null passwords. Note: if you rename the SAM file on XP SP2, when y ou reboot, XP fails to initialize and forces you to reboot in safe mode. However when you boot into safe mode you get the same message, so don't try this method on XP SP2.

[edit] WarningsThis method may or may not work with machines running XP SP2, you will need to use "safe mode with networking" instead. Use these instructions for ethical purposes only, please. Accessing Windows Admi nistrator and changing passwords could be construed as illegal entry and electro nic trespass in a court of law. This whole process is pointless if you know the administrator's password as you can easily remove passwords without going into safe mode. Assuming that your PC only has one user profile with administrative powers.