Help need input re ubuntu to windows makeover

Here's a poser.

My cousin and his wife, who are absolutely the least computer savvy people on the face of the earth, brought their computer over for me to take a look at. They were complaining that they couldn't get software to load, etc. They were absolutely sure they had Win2000 OS. Turns out that they had Ubuntu installed. No wonder the windows stuff wasn't loading, eh?

To complicate things further, They had basically bought the system used a few months ago for their daughter who, in cryptic teenage fashion, had secured everything with passwords that she never wrote down and now can't remember- so when you start up you get a screen asking for a password that as far as I can tell, you can't get past. (I haven't tried going into the bios, etc yet)

SO...any great ideas on how I can get past the passwords, salvage anything of 'value', and reinstall a new OS, most likely windows due to their lack of savvy and the previously bought programs... a dual OS would probably be OK, although, most of the sites I've seen insist that Windows must be installed first.

I have always wanted to try linux-based programs myself , but under far better circumstances (like properly installed dual-boot, etc). Afraid I know nothing about this particular OS at this time.

I'm crossposting this in the linux forum as well. Thank you all in advance. I don't come here often but I always get great advice!

 

One post on a subject please. Cross posting isn't allowed.

I'm leaving the Linux forum thread open.