Is there a way to get past a password on Vista?

[hometheaterman]

This should probably be in the computer forum but it gets soo much more traffic in here. Anyway a buddy bought a Comaq laptop for $200. It has Vista home basic or whatever on it. I've never used Vista. Anyway what happend is is has a password set before you can get into windows. So like the log in screen. The guy who he bought it from owned it and let his sister use it or something. His sister is now in jail or something. I think thats what he told me and this guy didn't know what password his sister had put on there. Is there a cheap way to get past this other than to buy a new copy of Vista? I told him go to Wal-Mart and buy a new vista disk and reinstall it but he doesn't want to spend that much. He doesn't know much at all about computers so I'm trying to help him. The guy that sold it to him told him he just needed to go to Wal-Mart and buy a $10 disk that would allow him to change the password. I have no idea what he is talking about and I think he is full of it. To me if it was a $10 fix he would have done it rather than selling it. Is there anyway to get past this or reset the password?

 

[sampatterson]

A google about forgotten passwords brought this up...

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor

 

[jayn_j]

Wow, this sounds sleazy. A "sister" of a foaf, and she is in jail. I bet if the guy took the s/n to the police station and checked it, he wouldn't be owning that laptop for long.

 

[hometheaterman]

Yeah I agree I would have stayed far away from this thing. I'm not sure why he bought it. He doesn't seem to know much about computers other than how to check email and surf the web and I don't think he realized how hard it was to change the password. I think he just went on that guy telling him that it would be a $10 disk and trusted him as they know the people.

I just don't get the point in buying used electronics especially stuff like this. I'm just trying to help him out since he did buy it and give him suggestions but honestly if it had been me I would have more than likely stayed pretty far away from this thing. I'm not trying to talk bad about him or the computer that's just how I feel about it. I think after me telling him what I thought he'd need to do he realized that buying it was a mistake as he started talking about trying to resell it. He said he just wanted it to watch DVD's and that was it. I think thats basically true I think all he really wants is a portable dvd player and this came along and he thought he could use it as one.

 

[mike123abc]

If you have the installation disc it might be better to reinstall, who knows what is lurking on that drive. I believe with vista you can use any installation disc and just put in the license key in and it will put the correct version for that key on for you. If not, a disc from the pc maker is probably $10 or so.

Another thing is if it was stolen it could be lojacked and when you hook it up to the internet it will send out its location to the owner.

 

[diogen]

Vista laptops, just like XP laptops, have the license key underneath the box on a sticker.
Get the appropriate version (Home, Business, Premium) from any other laptop
owner (OS disc, not recovery disc) and re-install using that key.

Diogen.

 

[hometheaterman]

Well, apparently the guy came back today and said his father got mad at him for selling it so he wanted to buy it back. He sold it back to him. I think things worked out for the best imo.

 

[Ronald_Jeremy]

and I don't think he realized how hard it was to change the password. I think he just went on that guy telling him that it would be a $10 disk and trusted him as they know the people.

It is actually a free disk.

Not sure if it works on Vista, but with XP, NT, and 2000 if you must reset the password, the bootdisk that Sampatterson linked to works great. But I don't like changing the password as it will fubar encrypted files if the user has personal file encryption set.

I now use ophcrack. It will crack the log on passwords. Each time I have used it I had the password in less than 2 minutes after it booted!

But either way, it is good that he got rid of the laptop. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.