over riding passwords on newly purchased used IBM pcs

I just purchased 4 IBM laptops from an auction. All will start up, however they have user names and request passwords that I do not have. Is there a way to bypass or change the password so I do not lose the software prviously installed. They are all W/98 or newer, I hwas told. This may be over my head. Sometimes what seems to be a good dealturns into a nightmare. I bought these to provide cheap loners for EIU students who do not have PCs.
Farfromgeek

 

Please explain safe mode??

 

Generally with Win98 a password is not needed, just hit the enter or esc button and go (at least all of my Win98 machines with password could be bypassed with just hitting enter or esc, been soooo long since I fired one up ).

 

Update:
Did a little "Googling" for bypassing win98 password:

http://searchenterprisedesktop.tech...ebaseAnswer/0,289625,sid192_gci998418,00.html

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Windows-95-98-1061/Setting-Windows-98-Password-4.htm

If you have XP, you can try the ophcrack Live CD:

http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/download.php?type=livecd

It does seem to work well for XP, and there is a version for Vista as well.