How to change the Winows 2000 logon password?

I have had a virus et up my computer a bit. My problem came about after I have hacked around trying to get my CD rom to read my printer installation CD. I have a popup box now to logon to Windows and I can't figure out what the logon/Password combination is.

How can I bypass this windows logon box.

This question was answered on August 22, 2003. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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When a Windows 2000 computer users password is lost or forgotten, or unknown, the only way you can change the password is for the system administrator (or a user with administrative abilities) to log on and change, or reset the password the password using computer managment.

(there is no method in windows 2000 to bypass the password and logon screen)

How to change reset password:

If you know the administrative user name and password log on using it If you do not know, or did not change the administrative user name and password the default is:

User name: administrator

Password: password

To Reset a User's Password:

If a user account needs to be reset, logon as the administrator or as a user with administrative access, and then follow these steps:

Click Start, point to Programs, click Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.

Expand the Local Users And Groups object under System Tools, and then click the Users folder.

In the right pane, right-click the appropriate user object, and then click Set Password.

Type the appropriate password, and then click OK.

Click OK to acknowledge that the password change succeeded.

Close the Computer Management console and Administrative Tools windows.

The user can log on with the new password.

To Reset the Administrator's Password

Log on to the computer as a user with administrative privileges, and perform the steps listed above for the Administrator account.

If the Administrator password needs to be reset, and there are no other users with administrative access, there is no way to recover the password and the operating system will need to be reinstalled.

Additional Information

A common problem that occurs is using the incorrect case for one or more of the letters in the password If your password is not accepted, try this:

Press the CAPS LOCK key, and then type the password again If you remember holding down the SHIFT key when you originally crated the password, make sure you press the SHIFT key as appropriate, even if the CAPS LOCK key has been pressed.

In Windows 2000, passwords are case-sensitive For example, the following passwords are all different because the letters are in different cases in each password:

password

Password

PASSWORD

Type the password using different combinations of uppercase and lowercase characters For example, if the password "password" is not working, try "Password" or "PASSWORD".

Sometimes, the prompt to configure the Administrator password is inadvertently skipped, leaving the Administrator account password blank To determine if this has happened, attempt to log on as Administrator with a blank password.

If someone else has access to the computer, check with that person to see if they have changed the password.

additional help from the Microsoft user knowledge base question 258289.

About the author

Posted by Student of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on August 22, 2003

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