my dad forgot administrator password

[Jess]

A while ago my dad put a parental control on my account (GRR). He set up a new administrator account.

Well because of this I can't download anything ( I never download anything BAD - never!) because I need permission and before I didn't need to type in the password but now I have to.

I want to install an anti virus software. However I can't. I need the password. I asked my dad to type in the password.

And guess what? He FORGOT the password! He set up the password and forgot it

My question is, is there some way we can recover or reset the password WITHOUT installing ANYTHING or reinstalling Vista?

[TheMatrix]

There's ways of recovering it. Try this, though it probably won't work because your dad forgot the password:
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/cachecrack

Otherwise, tell him to try something.
Pet's names, birth days, relatives, maiden names, that sort of thing. The password could be very obvious.

[Jess]

he set the hint as first US city. obviously I thought it was the first city we went to in the US ( I won't say what ). but that didn't work :S

[Commander Thor]

There's ways of recovering it. Try this, though it probably won't work because your dad forgot the password:
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/cachecrack

Otherwise, tell him to try something.
Pet's names, birth days, relatives, maiden names, that sort of thing. The password could be very obvious.

You don't think before you post, do you?
That tutorial is for 2000/XP/2003 based Windows systems that are in a Domain/Active Directory setup.
Doesn't apply in this case since she has VISTA (And is most likey in a WORKGROUP setup).


@ the OP:
If you have a CD burner, I'd go with this option: http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/
Just follow the instructions on the site.

If you don't have a CD burner, then it gets a smidge more complicated. It involves editing the registry, and I'll only give instructions on that if you absolutely need it.

[Bryan B]

Really easy:
http://www.password-changer.com/

(Just need a CD or Flash Drive and boot from it)

[Jess]

thanks, I'll try this..

[Jess]

sorry for double posting, I have to since I want to bump it >_>

anyways it didn't work. you have to download it. as I said in the first post, i can't download anything because then I would need a password to grant whatever whatever permission. so there's no way I can use that

[Sith Lord 13]

Download it on a different computer, than put it on a flash drive or burn it to a CD.

[Jess]

good idea, I'll try that

otherwise I just have to hope it comes to my dad >_> cause he's gonna try and figure it out today.

[Commander Thor]

With the download at the link I posted, you shouldn't need administrator permission. It's just a simple .iso file that you can burn with Windows.

[Jess]

good news, I figure out the password all by myself :D

[CMiller]

Good new. Jess

But I still want to share my way with you.

If you use windows xp, you could do this:

When we install Windows XP, it automatically creates an account "administrator" and sets its password to blank. So if you have forget your XP login password then try this:

Step 1: Boot computer and press Ctrl+Alt+Delete twice when you see windows login screen. It'll show classic login box.

Step 2: Type "administrator" (without quotes) in username field and leave password field blank, press Enter and you should be able to login Windows.

Step 3: Now you could change or remove other accounts' passwords, including administrator password and other standard users' passwords

If that should not work, you could use some third party software.

You need another computer which could download from Internet. There is plenty of third party windows password recovery software (http://www.windowsloginrecovery.com/) available online. All of them are designed to create a windows password recovery disk. You could choose one of them to recover windows password. Here I use windows login recovery as an example. Only four steps:

Step 1: Download Windows Login Recovery (http://www.windowsloginrecovery.com/) and install it on the available computer
Step 2: Run the software and use it to burn a Windows password recovery disk (you could burn the file into the blank CD/DVD or USB flash drive)
Step 3: Change the BIOS setting of your locked computer to make it boot from the CD-ROM (Start computer and press F2 or Delete to enter BISO setup)
Step 4: Boot your locked computer from the created disk and remove the Windows password

[Commander Thor]

Good new. Jess

But I still want to share my way with you.

If you use windows xp, you could do this:

When we install Windows XP, it automatically creates an account "administrator" and sets its password to blank. So if you have forget your XP login password then try this:

Step 1: Boot computer and press Ctrl+Alt+Delete twice when you see windows login screen. It'll show classic login box.

Step 2: Type "administrator" (without quotes) in username field and leave password field blank, press Enter and you should be able to login Windows.

Step 3: Now you could change or remove other accounts' passwords, including administrator password and other standard users' passwords

Nice to see you're trying to help, but there are a few problems with your post here.
She is using Vista, which automatically throws your way out of the window, as Vista does not create an Administrator account.
And the Ctrl+Alt+Del x2 trick only works on XP Pro, so if she had Home, or Media Center edition, it wouldn't work.

Also, I'm requesting lock on this, as the OP's problem has been solved.