password expired in XP, what do I do?

[drmlvr]

Crap, XP says my password expired and have no idea what it is.  I do not want to reinstall operating system, have files I need to keep.  How do I go around this?

Mike

[Loki]

Never leave files you want to keep in the windows partition!

If you want to recover the files, you could run that harddrive as a slave in an other pc and recover them, or you can use an other drive as master with windows on it (if you have one that is)
After that you can reinstall windows.

How to get past the activation without a key I don't know

[shmokes]

I have a program called Active Password Recovery.  You can put it on a boot disk and it will allow you to reset the password (so there is no password) of any/all the user accounts on your system.  I think you can just get it from various places like Download.com, but if not shoot me a PM.

[hypernova]

shoot me

Alright.  There's your invitation!  Anyone who's wanted to off shmokes, here's your chance!

[jbox]

shoot me a PM.

You have no idea how disappointed I was. Cheney comes all this way and most of the aussies on this board probably had their fingers crossed all week that him and little Johnny would go out hunting, but no luck unfortunately. 

[johnm160]

You could also try booting into safe mode and logging in as administrator you would be supprise how many times this account has no password.

[jtfields]

Crap, XP says my password expired and have no idea what it is.  I do not want to reinstall operating system, have files I need to keep.  How do I go around this?

Passwords in XP don't expire.  Are you on a Windows Domain?  If so maybe it's your network pasword that's expired.

[SNAAKE]

I think his bootleg xp expired and cant log in anymore is that the case ??

try slave mode I guess..I cant think of any other way to get your files

[johnm160]

Passwords can expire in XP. It all depends on what is set in your local security policy

[shmokes]

Can XP be set to log in automatically if you have a password set up?  I know you could do it in 2000, but for some reason I'm thinking that in XP if a username has a password set up on it, the password has to be entered every time you log in.

[RayB]

Have you tried just hitting "enter" without putting in a password?

[ChadTower]

Have you tried "12345"?

That's the combination on my luggage.

[KenToad]

Use the password killer.

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm#1

[Crax]

Can XP be set to log in automatically if you have a password set up?  I know you could do it in 2000, but for some reason I'm thinking that in XP if a username has a password set up on it, the password has to be entered every time you log in.

Yes, you can automatically log a user in with XP provided you aren't on a domain
go to your cmd prompt and type in "control userpasswords2" without the quotes of course and it will bring up a window
Uncheck the box at the top and hit ok and it will have you choose a default user to log in with.

[shmokes]

Heh . . . that's exactly the box that I'm used to using in 2000.  I didn't know it was still accessible in XP.  Thanks.  I love learning about that sort of thing.

[drmlvr]

Have you tried just hitting "enter" without putting in a password?

wtf?  It worked!  Now I feel dumb.  Why would it ask for it if I never put one in?  Thanks for tip Ray!

[Loki]

You're kidding right? 

[drmlvr]

You're kidding right? 

NO, I am not.  It really did work and I really overlooked it.  It never occurred to me to just hit "enter".  

[jtfields]

Have you tried just hitting "enter" without putting in a password?

wtf?  It worked!  Now I feel dumb.  Why would it ask for it if I never put one in?  Thanks for tip Ray!

Check your user accounts.  Maybe a Windows update or other program you install might have created another user account (Microsoft's .Net Framework used to do this.)  If there is more than one user account (not including the Guest account) then XP will show a logon screen.  The .Net account was useless and could be deleted to solve this problem.

[SNAAKE]