[mikebrinn]

Sort of a luxury problem, but have a backup Dell laptop running XP that I didn't use for a long time and I forgot my sign in password, and I was the administrator account. Dell wouldn't help me out (I might be trying to crack a stolen computer). I looked for password crackers and services - $70 to $200 were the prevailing quotes.

Then a friend suggested I boot into safe mode. There is an extra admin account that is not password protected. I was able to go into users and change the password on my account with no problems.

[Sooky 47]

..... Hmmmm - so much for thinking xp is so secure! ha ha !
I found this out when I had put a password on the computer to block my daughter from using it . She turned around and did what you did , and she changed my password so that when I went onto the computer I was blocked ~ I luckily had saved the password info to disk and was able to gain access . It was only later that she told me how she had changed the password!
Where there is a will there is a way!
Lu

[Squashman]

Yes, by default, most manufacturers ship their computers with the Administrator password blank. It is totally unacceptable to me. They need to tell their customers this when they buy computers. But I think it has to be this way because of the way sysprep works. But they should really inform their customers that they need to set a password on the administrator account when they receive it. Especially if you keep sensitive data on your computer.