I've messed up once again while deleting stuff to make room on my hard disk. Now my PC won't recognize my user password which I'd only set up some weeks ago and I'm locked out of XP. The guy who set up our PCs (business) now lives in Africa and I don't have the administrator password. I tried following these instructions:


1. Place your Windows XP CD in your cd-rom and start your computer (it’s assumed here that your XP CD is bootable – as it should be - and that you have your bios set to boot from CD)

2. Keep your eye on the screen messages for booting to your cd Typically, it will be “Press any key to boot from cd”

3. Once you get in, the first screen will indicate that Setup is inspecting your system and loading files.

4. When you get to the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER to Setup Windows now

5. The Licensing Agreement comes next - Press F8 to accept it.

6. The next screen is the Setup screen which gives you the option to do a Repair.

It should read something like “If one of the following Windows XP installations is damaged, Setup can try to repair it”

Use the up and down arrow keys to select your XP installation (if you only have one, it should already be selected) and press R to begin the Repair process.

7. Let the Repair run. Setup will now check your disks and then start copying files which can take several minutes.

8. Shortly after the Copying Files stage, you will be required to reboot. (this will happen automatically – you will see a progress bar stating “Your computer will reboot in 15 seconds”

9. During the reboot, do not make the mistake of “pressing any key” to boot from the CD again! Setup will resume automatically with the standard billboard screens and you will notice Installing Windows is highlighted.

10. Keep your eye on the lower left hand side of the screen and when you see the Installing Devices progress bar, press SHIFT + F10. This is the security hole! A command console will now open up giving you the potential for wide access to your system.

11. At the prompt, type NUSRMGR.CPL and press Enter. Voila! You have just gained graphical access to your User Accounts in the Control Panel.

These steps don't work for me because after step 8, it does not reboot but instead I'm asked,"Which Windows Installation would you like to log onto" and when I choose one, I am then asked for the administrator password which I don't have.

Please help if you can - I cannot do any work at all tomorrow without my pc - my boss will kill me...

Thanks!

The password it's asking for (at the bottom of your post) is not your account password -- it's asking for the password belonging to the default 'Administrator' account (the account which Windows creates automatically during setup). Even when no password has been set for this account, Windows still prompts for it. If no password has been set (to your knowledge), just leave it blank and press Enter or whatever it is you do to continue.

Thank you for replying!

When I click enter, it says invalid password! So the guy who set us up, did set up an administrator password. Is there any other way of getting around this problem?

Unfortunately, while your request seems valid, we really have no way of knowing for sure that someone else wouldn't come along who has an illegal reason to bypass a password and use the information we provide, so unfortunately we can't help you with this issue.