Uh Oh. How do I get into my password-locked old computer?

Factual Questions
1

First, I realize this may be an inappropriate thread giving the “hacking” possibilities, if so apologize in advance and please remove.

Here’s situation. I have about a 4-year old Dell laptop running Windows2000. This was my work laptop back then, and when the company dissolved, I was given it. However, if I recall correctly (there’s more to this story, which is why I’m fuzzy on this) I always had to logon.

About 2.5 years ago, I got a different job, for which I initially freelanced. Used this laptop, but to connect to the network the IT guy there had to set me up with a different logon to a different domain. Which was fine. Once I was hired, the laptop became my home computer, and I’ve always logged on upon booting up, never got around to getting rid of it (and not sure I could’ve, since I don’t think I ever had admin priveleges on this machine).

So, this laptop may or may not have two layers of “admin” priveleges or something. It at least has a few users.

Anyway, I just built a new computer, and was trying to set up home network. On a thread here, it was mentioned to make sure both machines were on same workgroup. So, I changed my system networking properties from “domain” to “workgroup”. Machine told me to restart.

Now, upon restart, I get the same logon prompt, but it no longer recognizes my username/password. Furthermore, the “domain” dropdown is missing.

I’m locked out of my own computer. Is there any way to get back in, or at least to reset the network settings somehow so I can log back onto my machine?

Help!

2

Nevermind.

I made a few dozen educated guesses and finally got it right.

Thank God my company’s IT team isn’t even remotely sophisticated.

Hooray!

(although, on a purely curious note, and if the mods deem it appropriate, is it possible to bypass the Windows login yet change Windows settings?)

3

The simplest thing would be to reinstall the operating system. Then you could login and get access to your files. The drawback being that you might need to reinstall your applications too.

Does anyone have a better way of doing it?

4

First of all, the domain drop down may show up if there is an “Options” button on the logon screen. However, if you changed from a domain to a workgroup, it’s likely that the “Options” button doesn’t show up, meaning you have to log in with a user that is on the local machine, as opposed to a domain user.

You can also try, at the login prompt, specifying the domain\username in the “Username” prompt (such as “SDMB\silk1976”. That might work - I’ve never tried it. The idea is that even a domain user has a local user profile created, and you may be able to sneak in that way. You can also try logging into the machine with the username@domain style - windows 2000 provides a variety of ways to identify yourself.

If nothing else works, you may end up having to download a linux kernel based boot disk, which allows you to modify the registry hive of the windows machine, and reset the password. I’ve had to do this myself at one point. Unfortunately, I’m travelling at the moment and dont have access to my machine, and I dont remember the site I downloaded it from. Besides, I’m not sure if posting the link to a cracking tool here would be a good idea.

5

Ok, this is slightly more of a Windows question, but now that I’ve logged on as (an) administrator, there are certain settings that I still get a dialog box saying “you can’t change this, you don’t have permission”.

How can this be?

Can it be possible that I’ve logged as as administrator that was set up by my current IT which allows me to do virtually everything, but that my old company had an even higher-level admin (which I can guarantee I can’t get into, they were much more serious about security) that isn’t letting me do these things?

Basically, I was trying to change the sharing permissions on my C: drive, and it won’t let me.

6

I’d check the ownership and permissions of whatever it is that you are trying to change. If I remember the NT security model correctly, you may have to take ownership of the items that you wish to change.

7

oh, and by the way, thanks silk1976 and mks57 for answering.

8

Goto Start/Settings/Control Panel/Users and Passwords - do any of the users have domain names from your former employer? Any network administrators?

Take a look here.

9

Yes, there are utilities to reset the password on the local administrator account.

You might have to alter some settings under Local Security Policy in Administrative Tools to get rid of the remaining restrictions. Also check the NTFS permissions for the folders in question on the Security tab of Properties. Take ownership of them if necessary.