Gaming Vista Password Bypass?

[Dr Awesomo]

Alright, here's the scoop...

My sister managed to forget her password on her laptop. She's running a Vista Home Premium operating system, and running the computer in safe mode doesn't help, as she has her Vista administrator account is inactive. As you know (hopefully otherwise), this feature can't be activated without at least the command prompt, which can only be run within an account (apperantly).

So, my question is this:

How can I open the command prompt (be it through Safe mode, or normal boot), without having to log in?

 

[jefffisher]

http://www.hirensbootcd.net/documents/134-...p-password.html

 

[Sharpz]

You can always just get one of those password reset programs that you burn onto a disc and run it at boot up to reset or remove the password.

 

[Hakoda]

Snag a Win Vista Recovery Disc from here. Burn it, boot it up and go into the command prompt. Type "net user administrator /active:yes" without quotes. Reboot normally and there should be an admin account present. Use it like you would in XP to go into the control panel and disable the password. Log off, log into your sister's account, and start a CMD with Admin access. Type "net user administrator /active:no" to disable the admin account.

 

[Dr Awesomo]

Snag a Win Vista Recovery Disc from here. Burn it, boot it up and go into the command prompt. Type "net user administrator /active:yes" without quotes. Reboot normally and there should be an admin account present. Use it like you would in XP to go into the control panel and disable the password. Log off, log into your sister's account, and start a CMD with Admin access. Type "net user administrator /active:no" to disable the admin account.

You have no idea how much I wished that worked.

despite attempts activating both admin and guest accounts through the cmd via this method, there were no posistive results, contrary to the "completed successfully" on both accounts.

any other tips?

 

[ThePowerOutage]

Do you have access to CMD on another PC?

 

[jefffisher]

use hirens boot cd like i posted i've done it hundreds of times, and it has worked on every PC from windows 2000 to windows 7.

 

[JonthanD]

yeah best advice has already been given, use a Hiren's boot CD and delete the SAM and replace it with a generic one.

As long as you have access to booting from CD that is.

 

[ThePowerOutage]

Or try this
Filetrip.net/f13094-XPVista7-Password-Recovery-1-0.html

 

[Dr Awesomo]

Unfortunately, I can't successfully download this Hiren's boot CD =S

 

[jefffisher]

you must have missed the download links they're on the very bottom of the download page it says

+ Direct HTTP Mirror + Torrent + Torrent Magnet

they are the same color and same font as the rest of the text easy to overlook.

 

[FAST6191]

Hiren's is in my list of discs* but for passwords I have two main choices
1) Ophcrack- this will recover the password although it might take a while and might not work if you have a complex password. With the password though you should not lose anything if you have an encrypted drive or saved passwords with IE (not sure about real browsers)

Do note there are two main versions if you are going the LiveCD route- one for XP and before the other for Vista and 7

2) offline NT password reset. http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html
I have had surprisingly few forgotten password incidents of late but this is my usual go to method.


* http://gbatemp.net/t218986-setting-up-a-po...t&p=2779941

 

[junn]

http://www.kryptoslogic.com/?area=2&item=2&page=0
or
http://www.piotrbania.com/all/kon-boot/

 

[JiN1337]

There's a free, virus-free way to actually get into the computer without a password. If you run a Windows system, and forget the password, you can't get in. However, what if another operating system were to access that hard drive, it wouldn't recognize it was being asked for the password.

Here's what I did, if you just need to get data, you can figure it out on your own from here however.

Google and download Knoppix, (Linux Distro)

and burn it to a DVD-R, or put in on a flash drive.

Make sure your BIOS has the optical drive, or flash drive set to boot from first.

You should be loading Knoppix now, and you will login to Knoppix's desktop. You will be able to access all files on your hard drive, pictures, videos, music, text documents. It's basically bypassing the password.