# Windows XP  -  Beating the Password System.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-beating-the-password-system/157589>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 26, 2003, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-beating-the-password-system/157589 "2003-02-26T06:22:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-beating-the-password-system/157589/61 "2003-03-01T13:02:58Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by particlewill \*  
> \*\*Why not just YANK OUT THE FLOPPY DRIVE?
> 
> Let’s see him boot with a floppy then. The bloody things are near useless anymore as it is. \*\*

Naah… it’s too useful. Aside from it being cheap storage that any PC will accept, I can still use a tool like [tomsrtbt](http://www.toms.net/rb/) with a floppy drive, but not with any of your overpriced CD-RW or Iomega’s Proprietary Floppy Format.

The BIOS is obsolete (real OSes, like Linux, don’t use the BIOS at all once they’re running), but the floppy drive has a few good years in it yet.

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**Author:** ![Demon\_Headmaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@Demon\_Headmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demon_Headmaster)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-beating-the-password-system/157589/62 "2014-12-03T17:18:41Z")

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If Windows Bitlocker had existed back when this thread was started, could it have alleviated the OPs problem at all? 😕

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**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2014, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-xp-beating-the-password-system/157589/63 "2014-12-03T19:23:43Z")

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Probably not. Bitlocker is disk encryption, not access management. I didn’t read the whole thread but the kid probably got access some other way (keylogger? admin account?) rather than cracking anything on the disk.

Newer versions of Windows do have better password encryption and access management, but not because of Bitlocker.

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