Clean up on a 'used' laptop-missing restore CDs

Buddy bought a laptop at a flea market thinking it was a good deal with restore CDs, etc.
Turns out that the restore CDs are not correct for the laptop.
The machine has some policy stuff that appears to be interfereing with using USB Drives, minumum pasword length and some other items.

Any instructions on how to manually 'fix; the unit to get it back to a more user friendly state with the restore CDs?

Thanks.

 

You probably need to give some more information here.
Type of laptop and OS for starters.
Also, what problems are you having? Does it boot? If it boots, what are you trying to do that you can't do? What happens when you try to do it?

 

Everything works and I have the Adminstrator's password.

Everything works and I have the Adminstrator's password.
I have just never worked with all of the policy stuff that can be set up.
It is a Dell Latitude D810 with XP SP2.
It boots & everythings appears to work OK - it does seem slow on boot, hibernate, etc.

There are just some things that are 'restricted' or that have been set so that they cannot be modified- like the password length.

I was hoping there may be a quick and easy way to get the restrictions removed or to reset 'security' and/or related settings to their original or base state.

Thanks

 

First thing you need to do is make sure you are in an Administrator Account. Go to Control Panel>User Accounts - the account you are in should be listed as an Admin account. If you only see a limited account, you need to get into an admin account. (Instructions provided if needed).

Now go to Windows Explorer and right click on, say, your C drive. Click on Properties at the bottom, then open the Security Tab. Select a group or user, click Advanced, select Permissions tab, select a Name, click Edit, select the attributes you wish to allow.

For Password length, still in an Admin account, go to Control Panel>Admin Tools> Local Security Policy,
Under Security Settings, open Account Policies>Password Policy.
Right click on the policy you want to change in the right panel, select Properties, and set as you wish.

Not sure if that's what you wanted. Let's know if not.