Well, the school is having a meeting for all parents of freshmen tonight. I have heard that there have been an astronomical number of complaints concerning the laptops, which are new and only affect Freshman this year. I, fortunately, have two more years foolishly hope the school will realize it’s error and no longer require laptops. This school is enamored by technology with no good infrastructure to use it. I remember a couple years ago going in for parent day and watching the science class learn about 30 seconds of science and spend the next 391/2 minutes making a power point presentation (with sound!!!) to demonstrate the point. This year one assignment was to draw a detailed map of India using the paint program and print it out in color (the actual assignment that started me on this thread). Draw in Paint without a mouse. I guess the kids are way more co:ordinated than I.
You could always try “password” or “admin” for the password too. Lots of idiotic people use those.
If I were you though I’d make a great big noisy fuss about the whole matter. Protecting their network is one thing. Preventing you from using equipment YOU paid for is another. I wouldn’t put up with that for one minute.
I’d recommend that you not try resetting the password, as it could cause problems using said laptop at school.
Also, I agree that someone didn’t think about this before they did it. “Oh! Technology! It’s the wave of the future! Laptops for everyone!”. Imagine Homer Simpson after he set his house on fire, looking around to see his little song put the fire out. Betcha whoever did this doesn’t understand why the kids aren’t doing three variable derivation and speaking Swahili yet.
It’s 'cause you need a good teacher with good texts, and if you think I forgot to mention the computer, I didn’t. 
Plus, although there are perfectly good emulators available, the kids also need to purchase and use a TI-83 calculator for math.
I suggest doing a parallel install of Windows XP, to another directory.
When she’s at school… boot their copy of XP. When she’s at home, boot HER copy of XP.
I suggest doing a parallel install of Windows XP, to another directory.
When she’s at school… boot their copy of XP. When she’s at home, boot HER copy of XP.
dauerbach:
The emulators all require a ROM of the TI-83.
Even though you could use a pirated ROM in a legit emulator, in order to LEGALLY use the TI-83 code, you must purchase the TI-83.
My mistake, I thought there were programs that would produce an image of the TI-83 on the computer screen, and you would then use the mouse to push the buttons and it would graph and things just like the TI-83.
Yeah. I was sad when I found that out too, 'cuz honestly… the TI-83 was $$$$$$ for me when I was a student.
Ok, so I emailed the school. They tell me that the lack of the control panel is due to a general school policy related to computers with access to their domain, and the guy in charge is trying to get it changed so the laptops will regain the control panel. In the meantime, they have no problem with a local administrator on the computer having full access and gave me instructions on how to do it. The told me to log in as the student, on the schools domain, and that I would have full administrative privleges. I could then change the local admin password, and become a local administrator. Problem is, without access to the control panel I have no idea how to do that. I can’t find any way to change anything on the local, or any level. Any advice on how to do that without a control panel to access the user profiles?
Also, fyi, and F8 safe mode start does indeed give me administrator privleges on my home computer but not hers. Ctrl-Alt-Del-Del does nothing, and as best I can determine, Super Administrators are a linux thing, not a windows thing.
I do it on Windows XP all the time. In fact, I am right now an SA on this machine. Did you hold down Ctrl and Alt, and press Del twice in succession? (Not slowly, but not too rapidly.)
Hmmm, I’ll have to try it some more. I originally tried all kinds of speeds of tapping the del key, but none worked. I only tried it at the sign in prompt, does it work anywhere in windows? Also, this is XP Professional, which may or may not be different. I know that when I reboot her computer I encounter a log on that is exactly like the one on windows 2000, rather than the cute little icons with names next to them that I encounter on XP, home edition.
Right-click My Computer and hit Manage. Expand Local Users and Groups then select Users. Right-click Administrator and hit Set Password.
If they’ve somehow taken Manage out of the context menu you’ll have to go to Start|Run, type in mmc, and hit File|Add/Remove Snap-in|Add|Computer Management|Local Computer. Then follow the steps above.
Thanks, I will try that.