[RiotingPacifist]

Is there any way to temporerily change a users password, e.g you need to log in as them to reconfigure something but don't want to either reset their password or have to get in contact with them.

p.s before somebody says this is a bad thing to do, let me be clear that i'm already domain admin and can edit all their files, read/send all emails as them or just reset their password, this is only needed so i can get useful work done more easily.

p.p.s this is something akin to manually editing /etc/passwd on unix, perhaps there is a way to backup an AD object for a user, make changes to their profile, then restore the AD user thus restoring the password?

[Squashman]

I have never done it on a server or domain level but have done something similar locally on a pc. You can boot with a BartPE Cd or a live linux cd and replace the sam database with a different one, reboot the computer and login with a user account that you know the password for in the new sam database. We only ever did it with the administrator user though as a proof of concept when I was in school.

Unfortunately Windows doesn't have the SU command like linux does. Not sure why you would go about changin the password file in unix when all you would have to do is SU.

[RiotingPacifist]

Thanks for the quick reply, unfortunately offline editing the SAM database wouldn't work as the users tend to be domain users, could i edit the password cache? Then boot the PC disconnected from the network (although I'm not sure I could do much if i did that)

[Squashman]

You can't do what you are trying to do. Unless something has changed in the past couple of years that I have not heard of.