1:when we try to connect to my roommates computer over a network, him using 2000 us using win98, it asks us for a password. He claims to have “forgotten” said password. assuming i have acess t ohis computer on the actual pc side how would i go about finding the lost passwords on his machine?
2: I remember hearing that in win98 you could run some syestem settings to limit the amount of badwidth the computer was able to use from the user side. can windows 2000 do this also and how would it be done?
Passwords in most windows OS’s cannot be ‘retrieved’ in this fashion, period. (the password that gets entered is converted into a binary sequence in a manner that is generally not reversible – when you enter a password for access to the system it translates that in the same way and looks to see if the binary sequences match up, or something along those lines.)
However, with physical access to the windows 2000 machine on an administrator login, you should be able to reset the account to a new password. I’m assuming that the windows 2000 ‘variant’ is professional - if it’s one of the server variants you’ll need to go through administrator tools, computer management.
On professional, you can go to the control panel and pick ‘users and passwords’. Then it’s just a matter of finding the correct account, hitting the [set password] button, and entering your new desired password twice.
What Chrisk said. Plus, if your roomate’s computer is configured to login automatically at start-up, then the password is also saved in the registry. If this is the case, I can tell you where to look in the registry.
What password is it asking for? Often you’ll see a 2000 box asking for a password on a “IPC$” account. If this is the case, you’ll need to have him create a user on his computer using the username and password you use at the MS Networking prompt on your Win98 computer. If the password prompt is for an actual person (“John”), then have him login as an Administrator and change the password for that particular account.
Never heard of that before - and I’ve tried just about every anti-administrator tweak you can think of! Why would you want to limit his bandwidth on a LAN?
why limit him? well we have 3 computers hooked up to a router hooked up to a cable connection and he’s got this bad habit of running bittorrent downloads. Bittorrent is a loveley little program that will use any and all bandwidth it can get a hold of thereby killing the connection on the other 2 computers to worse than dial-up. i’m hoping to be able to limit him without buying new equipment
and where in the registry should i look for the password?
Oh. Silly me. I thought you were talking about limiting his bandwidth on the LAN, not on the Internet. Well, if that’s the case then the answer isn’t so simple. I’ve never tried to use any programs for that, but anything you can come up with to install on his PC, he can simply shut down - unless he has a standard “user” account and said program runs as a service - which he could still shut down if he knows the 2000 Admin’s password. You can do something like this using Active Directory on a 200x domain, but that’s like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly - and costs $$$$ to boot. Unless your router has some “parental controls” or some “business-friendly” options that can limit the bandwidth - and again, you have to keep the router PW a secret and keep him away from the router’s RESET button - I don’t really know what will help you.
Well if - and only if - you have TweakUI installed and have it set to auto-login on his 2k box it should be located here in plaintext:
If not, it’s not in the registry. it’s located in \winnt\system32\config, BUT it’s a hashed file called SAM… You won’t be able to retrieve his password there without some serious hacking. And if you screw up in even the smallest way, his machine will become unbootable. If you must reset a 2k password, use this Linux tool to reset his password (follow their recommendation and reset the password to “blank” (not the word “blank”, just nothing) and then logon to his Win2k box and reset it to something you’d prefer).
In Win98, can can’t “reset” passwords either, but you can delete any file with a *.PWL extension and you’ll be asked for it again at next reboot.