Main password on Windows Vista

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Sue - 24 May 2008 21:54 GMT

My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has Windows Vista.
When you turn on her laptop it comes up asking for a password straight away,
this is the one that she's forgotten.

I thought that I could make a reset password disc from a friends computer
who has Vista, but this doesn't work.

It allows me to put in a new password and question hint, but when I click
next it comes up with 'an error occured while wizard was attempting to set
the password for this user account'. Is this because I've copied it from
another computer??

Does anyone have any idea how I can change her password as I don't really
want to do a system restore as she has all her homework and pictures on there
and don't want her to loose it.

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

Reply to this Message

Carey Frisch [MVP] - 24 May 2008 22:13 GMT

Windows Key is an easy-to-use tool to gain access into any Windows
system if a login password is lost. The software allows you to reset passwords
in a matter of minutes:
http://www.lostpassword.com/windows.htm

Signature

Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience -
Windows Vista Enthusiast

---------------------------------------------------------------

Reply to this Message

Malke - 24 May 2008 22:41 GMT

> Windows Key is an easy-to-use tool to gain access into any Windows
> system if a login password is lost. The software allows you to reset
> passwords in a matter of minutes:
> http://www.lostpassword.com/windows.htm

Why pay $45 for something that you can do for free with numerous Linux
utilities? The old standby - tried and true and free - NTpasswd.

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

I can't believe you don't know about this as it is posted in the MS
newsgroups constantly.

Malke

Signature

MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!

Reply to this Message

Nonny - 24 May 2008 23:50 GMT

>> Windows Key is an easy-to-use tool to gain access into any Windows
>> system if a login password is lost. The software allows you to reset
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>Why pay $45 for something that you can do for free with numerous Linux
>utilities? The old standby - tried and true and free - NTpasswd.

He hasn't added it to his copy-and-paste library yet.

Reply to this Message

Dave - 24 May 2008 22:41 GMT

> My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has
> Windows Vista. When you turn on her laptop it comes up asking for a
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>
> Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

If you can manage to burn an iso image onto a cd then this page
has the information.

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

Briefly, you download this file from the page, cd070927.zip.
Right-click the downloaded zip file and extract the iso file.
Burn the iso to a cd.
Boot with the cd and just follow default instructions.
(Best to wipe existing password.)

It's dead easy and works on Vista.

And it is FREE.

.

Reply to this Message

Sue - 25 May 2008 11:34 GMT

Dave

Thanks for your response. Might be being extremely thick here but I can't
get it to work. I've copied the ISO file to a DVD but nothing comes up on my
daughter's laptop. I turn on the computer, put the DVD in, shut down the
computer and restarted it saying reboot from CD/DVD but nothing it just
brings up the first page asking for her password.

Have I done anything wrong??

> > My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has
> > Windows Vista. When you turn on her laptop it comes up asking for a
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
>
> ..

Reply to this Message

Dave - 25 May 2008 12:49 GMT

> Dave
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> Have I done anything wrong??

You say you have 'copied' the iso file to a dvd. I think that may be the problem.
The iso file is an 'image' of a bootable cd rom. It has to be burned using a cd burning program.
If you have just copied it with explorer then it is not a bootable image.
Try burning it with your usual cd/dvd writing program, one that can handle iso images.
If you are not sure whether you have such a program , then use ImageBurn.
It is a small, free burning program - I always use it for iso files.

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

Whichever burning program you use, open the program and burn the iso file onto a cd\dvd.
(As it's only a small image it will fit onto a blank cd if you prefer not to waste a dvd.)

Also, as Malke has said, the laptop's own password may have been set.
This is before Vista even loads, and has nothing to do with Vista.
If this is the password you are seeing, and not a Vista logon password, then none of the above will help.
So you need to be sure which password you are trying to edit.

Good luck!

Reply to this Message

Malke - 24 May 2008 22:45 GMT

> My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has Windows
> Vista. When you turn on her laptop it comes up asking for a password
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

From your description of the issue - that a password is required immediately
upon turning on the computer - it sounds like your daughter set a
BIOS-level password and not a Windows password. However, your description
of what happens with the reset password disk would seem to indicate
otherwise. I simply cannot guess.

If this is a BIOS-level password, then contact the laptop mftr. about how to
reset this. Some laptops will allow you to change the BIOS password in
software; others require sending the machine back to the laptop mftr. so
that a chip on the motherboard can be reprogrammed.

If this is a Windows password, then you can change your daughter's password
to a blank with this free program:

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Once you are in the system, change her password to something she will
remember and WRITE IT DOWN SOMEWHERE SHE WILL NOT LOSE IT.

Malke

Signature

MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!

Reply to this Message

Not Me - 24 May 2008 22:55 GMT

> My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has Windows
> Vista.
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

When you make a password reset disk on a certain computer, it is for the
user accounts on that machine.
Since the account on your daughters machine is different, the disk made on
another machine doesn't find the account it is made to reset, thus the
error.
There are password reset disks that you can make that work on most
computers.
I use a bootable Linux CD that bypasses Windows entirely and allows the
password to be reset.
The problem is, it will work for stolen computers as well as your own.
If you do a Google search on it, you can find the downloadable image to burn
to CD to reset the password.

Reply to this Message

Brink - 24 May 2008 23:00 GMT

Sue;721418 Wrote:

> My daughter has forgotten her password for her laptop. She has Windows
> Vista.
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>
> Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

Hi Sue,

I do not know what method you used to create a the password reset boot
disk or if it is the same, but the one in Method Three of this tutorial
has had great success.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/102005-reset-user-account-password.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Signature

Brink

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask
them.*
'*VISTA FORUMS*' (http://www.vistax64.com)
*Please post feedback to help others.*

Reply to this Message