My friend's partner died and nobody knew the password to his laptop. It's Windows Vista but it's better than nothing. I need to know what to do now. (1) he disabled the default hidden administrator account. The only account on the computer is his account, which we don't have the password for. (2) we don't have a Vista installation disk. We did try downloading a Windows Vista ISO and burning it to a DVD but that only let me restore the computer to a previously saved restore point, not reset it. What can I do? My friend said he doesn't care if it gets factory reset, but I can't even seem to do that!
@Kirby-cell have you tried booting from disc. need to go in to your bios and set your bot prioritys to you cd-rom you are installing it from.. then you can start a new and delete partions
I did but the disc is only allowing me to revert back to a previously saved restore point. I think the Vista ISO my friend burned to the DVD might be wrong. I'll be honest, Idk what I'm doing. I just followed some links after asking this question as a Google search.
Look up something called SystemRescueCD. It has a ton of tools. You may have to wipe the hard drive, then put in the Windows CD afterward. Or, if you're inclined, create a Kali Linux boot disc, then run one of the Windows password crackers that comes with it.
Okay so new developments in this story: Someone is sending me another computer, so I won't have to worry about this one. Another friend of mine wants the Vista machine and he has a guy who knows how to wipe computers and reset them, so I'm passing the Vista to him and washing my hands of it. Thanks for the advice, tho. I expect to be back in game by the end of the month.
download Hyren's boot cd burn a copy of it. the lap top will boot from the disk when the utilities come up run Offline NT Password Changer 2011-05-11 it will erase every stored password on the machine. this should all take less then 5 minutes
Hopefully Kirby is all set now. But just FYI I had an old laptop that previously ran Windows XP on it, and I simply downloaded a copy of Windows 10 from Microsoft, installed it (no license key) and it worked. The only limitation was that without a licensed copy they won't let you customize the desktop and there may be some nag watermark too. This is a download directly from Microsoft, not some software piracy site, so AFAIK it is totally legal/ethical to do this. There is no guarantee that Microsoft will continue to allow unlicensed usage forever though. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 So for anyone that finds themselves in a similar situation, you might try this.
HACKER SITE that is a simple utility that will find the SAM file on any pc that you are personally in control of. when the SAM file is removed windows will revert to the norm which is if there is no pass then it is not protected !!! HACKER implies that some one from the out side got into a machine and preformed unwanted task. also this will leave the machine unharmed while what you suggest is downloading a new OS that might not fit the machine and or its hardware is a bad road leading to driver failure and blue screens. PLEASE open your mind
