Admin Password Issue

Hello- I had to replace my HDD and clean install the Windows XP Pro. I was rather busy at the time and had too many things going on, and I made a mistake. The stage of the install where it asks for a computer name and an admin password caught me. I assigned it a password, thinking that it would be my logon password to Windows. I knew better!:-o Anyway, what's done is done and I need to blank that admin password out.
My question, is there a way to do it without using the CD for a repair? I am the user w/ admin privileges, but it is giving me fits with changing services, etc, in 'msconfig'. Anybody?
Thanks!

 

If you start in safe mode, you should get an account called administrator along with the normal user account you set up. Log into that account and reset the password on your normal user account.

Or are you saying you created a password for this hidden administrator account.

If that is the case, then you can blank it with either Trinity Rescue Kit or PCLogin. In both cases you will have to burn the iso file with Imgburn or something that can burn an image file to CD. Another good option is offline nt password.

In PCLogin select the account and make sure the Password is empty box is checked.

http://www.pcloginnow.com/

http://majorgeeks.com/Trinity_Rescue_Kit_d7061.html

http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

 

Thanks 'tgell'... Yeah, the pw I refer to is for the 'hidden' admin acct.. Hiren's has got a couple of solutions in 'Mini XP', too. There is another trick, which I feel is more safe than 3rd party apps, but it requires loading the XP CD, and terminating the install with cmd @ 'installing drivers phase' with 'Shift+F10'.
I just can't believe I made that mistake! Oh well!
Thanks!
tim

 

Tried the Trinity Rescue Kit 3.4. Burned the ISO and ran the Winpass feature to no avail. Still get the access denial message when trying to make changes in msconfig. Apparently it didn't blank the password for the initial admin setting at OS install.

 

Is the regular account you log into an admin account? Can you reset the Administrator Account through your regular account?

If you have admin privileges on your regular account, get a command prompt.

What users are listed when you type:

net user

If you can see an account called Administrator, then type the following

net user Administrator *

It will prompt for a new password

 

OK, I am wondering if this will blank the admin password I installed when setting the OS up. In Control Panel> User Accounts, it indicates that I (TimTim's 'Puter) is the Administrator. I can change that password at will in Control Panel. The issue I am having is that when I run 'msconfig' and change anything, I am notified that Access Is Denied, because I don't have Administrator Privileges. Can you see where the confusion is coming from?
All of this came about when I messed up and gave the pc a name and password when I did the clean install. I know, I can run the XP CD and install to the point where it is loading the Drivers and then do a Alt+F10 and blank the System Admin password. I just was trying to avoid getting that CD anywhere near the machine. That's another story, though.
If I 'cmd'> 'net user Administrator *', yes, I get the prompt to enter a new password but I am not sure it is the one I want to blank out (system).
Anyway, thanks and let me know.

 

Now that I am reading through this, I am not sure if even blanking out the built in Administrator password will work. If you have admin privileges for your Tim account and it says access is denied because you do not have administrator privileges, then I would say something else is going on regarding permissions.

When the welcome screen comes up and you press Ctrl>Alt>Del twice. Type administrator for the user and leave the password blank. Will it let you login? If not, then I would try the net user command to blank the password and see if it solves the problem. You can always add a password latter.

Is this the screen you were at when you added the password for administrator? If it is, then the net user command should blank out the password. But, I would give a simple password like 123 to check it.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/ss/instxpclean2_9.htm

 

OK, I'll go check it now. Thanks, and I'll post back.

No, the welcome screen has an entirely different password. Even though I am the only one that uses this pc, I still lock it down because I am a paranoic...lol!

 

OK, I rebooted and did the 'Alt+Ctrl+Del' x 2 and got the window for password. I highlighted 'TIMWHALEN' and typed 'Administrator' in, with NO password and it logged me in.

Here is the link to the method I was trying to explain. It just seemed that there would be an easier way to do this:

[URL="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/recover-your-windows-xp-administrator-password-with-the-installation-disk/"[/URL]

 

I would try clearing all of these passwords with Trinity Rescue Kit or PcLogin. You can always add new passwords later. Both are bootable iso's that you can burn with Imgburn or other software that can burn an image. With PClogin, select the account and make sure the box "Password is empty" is selected. You can also check any other accounts for passwords and clear them. The only caution is that if account uses EFS than you would lose the files.

http://majorgeeks.com/Trinity_Rescue_Kit_d7061.html

http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?content=0.4_RESETTING_PASSWORDS&front_id=12&lang=en&locale=en

http://www.pcloginnow.com/

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/ss/pcloginnowsbs.htm

 

I already burned and ran the Trinity 'winpass' tool and it had no effect. The others I haven't tried.

 

If you typed in no password for Administrator, that means a password was never set for the built in Administrator account of XP. If the password was set, you would not have been able to log in. Thanks for the link.

If you create another account with admin privileges, does it still deny to access when you try to use msconfig?

I have too many thing running through my head. I should have realized we talked about Trinity earlier. Sorry. :-o You may have better luck with it by using interactive mode.

 

LOL!...I now the feeling. That's how I got into this mess!

OK, I may have learned something here. First, I checked C:>Manage>Computer Management>Local Users and Groups>Users. Didn't see anything peculiar there. It indicates Name= Tim Whalen, Full Name= TimTim's 'Puter, and nothing under Description. Now, when I ran PCLoginNow.iso, Highlighted 'Administrator', indeed the indication is that the password is 'empty'. There are a couple of items listed as 'Administrator(s)', and then 'Tim Whalen' is listed as 'Administrator'. Part of my troubleshooting mode has been to run 'Chkdsk' and 'sfc/ scannow'. Unless I am missing something here, the only possible conflict I can see is that differential between 'Name' and 'Full Name' in the .iso prog. In Computer Management, it baffles me that 'Tim Whalen/ TimTim's 'Puter' is null in the Description column when, indeed, it should read 'Administrator' (???...I think?)

I have Googled matters regarding Group Policy and for some strange reason my variant of Windows XP Pro SP3 x86 doesn't have provision for that in Computer Management. Pretty weird!

With all of this said, I really don't know where to go. I'll change the account name in User Accounts from 'TimTim's 'Puter' to 'Tim Whalen', reboot and see if I get the access denied message in 'msconfig'. The system never did this before the last clean install, and the only thing different, as mentioned earlier, was my blunder with installing that system admin password and name.

It's almost Excedrin time!

 

I was just doing a quick read of the thread and am not sure if you are past this point but the command in the final pic in tim's link control userpasswords2 can be run from Start>Run. It would give you the same box as that pic.

One thing is in XP when you change the name of a user it only changes it on the Welcome menu and the Start menu. The actual folder in C:/Documents and Settings retains the original user name. It isn't a big deal but if you are following instructions using that folder at some point in the future you will see their is a name discrepancy.

 

Thanks, 'sach2'. Something new has developed over the last couple of hours. In C:\Docs and Sttngs, I have new accounts now:

1)Administrator
2)Administrator.Tim Whalen (new)
3)All Users
4)Default
5)Tim Whalen

I am like royally confused now! The name on the Welcome screen is 'Tim Whalen'
In Control Panel>User Accounts, there are 2 accts.- Tim Whalen: Computer Administrator, password protected, and Guest, which I have turned off. I do not know where this 'Administrator.Tim Whalen came from. I am trying to get it where #5)Tim Whalen is the sole Administrator. Do I dare delete that #2) Administrator.Tim Whalen acct.?

 

I have never seen this. Maybe sach2 has. Do you see the new account in Documents and Setting?

 

Good Morning- Finally, a resolution! After much Googling regarding the 'Access Denied' message in System Configuration, the issue DID NOT lie within User Account status or User Policies after all.

HP Printer drivers trigger this message, however, I don't use HP Printers- I use Epson.

Secondly, the most recent of the major brands of Security Suites have a module within that are triggering this. I have used the avast! product for years, and when I installed the new HDD, did the clean install of Windows XP Pro, re-installed my avast! Internet Security, the prog updated to v7 (2012) from v6. The latest version has a module in it that prohibits 'self destruction'. Thus said, it has become clear that irregardless of the Sys Config denial message, the changes requested DO come into effect, even though the denial message indicates otherwise. Here is the response from avast! Support:

"with avast! self-defense module enabled, you can receive this error when disabling avast! services through Microsoft System Configuration Utility (msconfig), for instance when you change the startup type to Diagnostic or Selective.
To allow the system configuration tools to manage avast! services and drivers, disable avast! self-defense module (under Settings/Troubleshooting). "

I run in Selective Start Up mode.

I would just like to offer everyone who inputted my query a big, generous 'THANK YOU!' for helping me to brainstorm this matter.

tim :wave

 

Nice job. Thanks for the feedback. Did you ever resolve the issue regarding the new account that was created?

 

Yes, I did. After scrutinizing the folder content between 'Tim Whalen' (TimTim's 'Puter, screen name) and 'Administrator.Tim Whalen', I went and deleted the latter along with content and suffered no ill effects.

Sooo, with all said and done, there was nothing wrong with Acct. Status and/or Group/User Policies in the end. What I did accomplish was partially undoing the mistake I made during the clean install. Lesson learned?... Multi tasking can be a little more precarious as one ages!

Peace to all-

tim

 

One final word- I love my XP machine. It is the work horse in my Engineering stable and for what I use it for, it seems way more powerful and tweakable than my Windows 7 machines. Microsoft indicates that support will end in 2014 for the SP3 variant, which means there will be no more security patch updates delivered. With that said, I read an article at CNET that showed a graph indicating that XP is still ahead of 7 in terms of consumer and corporate usage.
I am going to go out on a limb and state that it wouldn't be at all surprising to me to see 3rd party software developers write security patches for XP.

Yes, XP x86 is limited by RAM volume. However, we have been able to side step that issue with a couple of 600GB VelociRaptors in a RAID 0 array and throwing a bunch of virtual memory at them. We haven't experienced ANY 'thrashing' whatsoever. Settings= 1.866GB Initial/Max

My apologies for wandering so far off topic.

 

Hi,

I'm glad your issue is resolved.

My own guess is that the Administrator.Tim Whalen account was created because of a corrupted Administrator account. Every time I have seen a username.something folder in Docs and Settings that has the exact username of a valid account with a .something ending it was created by Windows because the original account was corrupted.

Start again in Safe Mode and see if the Administrator account is shown on the Welcome screen. It really should be if the Administrator account is working.

If it doesn't show then do this again:

And then check Docs and Settings to see if another Administrator.something folder was created. That would indicate that you have a problem with the Administrator account. If there is only an Administrator folder than you are good.