Windows 7 password problem....AAAAAAGH

[ktoopi]

Ok can anyone help.............

I last used my desktop on Monday night .....stayed up late editing and designing photo books. When done, I shut down my system as normal and went to bed. Went down stairs tonight and turned on computer.............................SUDDENLY it is requesting a password!!!!!! I have never had a password........I do not have a password reset disk......there are no other users on my computer......how the %$#@ did a password suddenly appear and how can I get rid of it??????

Anyone have any clues? I looked online and all the answers were gloom and doom ie it can't be done!

I am still at a loss as to how the so called pass word got on there in the first place

Any and all help gratefully received............I have a ton of stuff to do and can't afford down time at the moment Baaaahhhhh!

Cheers Karen (ps I'm typing this on my laptop)

oh and I'm running windows 7

[WhoDo]

Google Windows 7 password key cracker or similar. There are programs like Winkey that can do this for earlier versions of Windows (NT, XP, Vista, etc.). I'd be surprised if someone hadn't come up with a utility for Win7 by now.

Is it possible one of the family did it without you knowing? If not, then you may have been hacked. Sorry you're having trouble Karen. Wish I could be more help but time and distance are against that.

[Cage]

If you go into the BIOS you may be able to disable the password.

I also run W7 and set it up without passwords, but every now and then it gives me a pop-up saying I don't have permission to perform this action. Go figure.

[ricktas]

just try hitting enter, the password could well be 'nothing'

[ricktas]

Can you get to 'safe mode'? Start the computer and while it is doing its 'startup' hit F8, just keep tapping F8 as the computer starts up and see if it will let you into safe mode.

If it does, then you can enable GODMODE. To access godmode, right click on the desktop and create a new folder, name your folder "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}" (copy and paste this without the quotes). Hit enter.

This will see the folder renamed to godmode. Click on it and it will give you access to well... GODMODE. This lets you basically change anything and everything about the computer. Just scroll down to user accounts and adjust the settings you need.

Restart the computer and you should be good to go

Note that godmode allows you to change/delete advanced system settings so be careful with what you do, and you do so at your own risk.

[fillum]

Karen do you have the original Win 7 install dvd or a repair dvd, or do you have access to another PC running Win 7 ?

I've reset the password on Win XP using the repair console but I don't know if the same process works on Win 7.



Cheers.

[Kym]

Try this if you need to http://www.prime-expert.com/ebcd/

[Sifor]

You can also try resetting the password through command prompt. Bit of googleing required though.

[ktoopi]

just try hitting enter, the password could well be 'nothing'

He He tried that

[ktoopi]

Karen do you have the original Win 7 install dvd or a repair dvd, or do you have access to another PC running Win 7 ?

I've reset the password on Win XP using the repair console but I don't know if the same process works on Win 7.



Cheers.

My Lap top runs windows 7 as well......I don't have the original installation disks for Windows 7 as the computers came with it already installed.

- - - Updated - - -

My husband has decided to take the computer to work this morning and get the young tech head/wizard to look at it I have printed off your instructions Rick so we can have a go via the tech head
All going well I'm hoping to have it back by tonight.

K

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Update: Rick, My Husband tried your instructions this morning and got it into safe mode but once in safe mode it still required a password

[NikonNellie]

I hope you get it fixed soon Karen. I had a similar problem with Windows 8 asking for my Microsoft Account Password. Luckily I had one but in the end I managed to get onto my desktop page without using it - can't remember what I did to get there though. I think it was hitting the enter button.

I had trouble with Skype yesterday asking me to login using a Microsoft Account password which I didn't want to use and have never had to before. Googled the problem and found that If I downloaded the latest version I could sign in with my usual Skype password. My son is leaving for England today for two years so I was horrified to find that I could not access the program.

I don't know what it all means but it becomes very annoying when you can't access your files all of a sudden. I sure I have my computer set to ask me before it makes any changes with updates.

[arthurking83]

Just to be sure:

You only have one user on the PC, and that is Karen I'm assuming.

The PC now and suddenly without any reason requests a password.

So it now takes you to the login screen .. is the username Karen(your account) or Administrator.

Even if you have only one user account created on the PC, there is always the Administrator account created as well, so your one user account will actually be two.
if you had two user accounts, that would make it three on the PC .. and so on.

Has the Admin account suddenly become activated?
This isn't easy to do, but I guess it's not impossible to do unwittingly.

If your user account(eg. Karen) has suddenly just changed and is now asking for a password, I'd be doing all manner of virus scans and port scans to see if you have been hacked into.

In fact, even without getting back into the PC .. I'd be more inclined to just do a reinstall all over again ..... just to be 101% sure that a trojan hasn't been activated!

Of course your data has already been backed up to an external repository of some kind, hasn't it!

good luck with it too tho.

[fillum]

I'd be pretty confident the 'tech head' will get it sorted...

My Lap top runs windows 7 as well.....

(Just for the sake of 'completeness'...) You can create a Win 7 repair disk on your laptop which can then be used to start up your desktop so you have access to the file system. I don't know how this works on Win 7 but was fairly primitive on XP (basic command-line), but does allow activities like registry restores by manually copying registry files, etc. A quick google turned up these instructions which looks simpler than fiddling about with registry files.

Good luck...



Cheers.

[arthurking83]

I'm pretty sure that the creation of a repair disk isn't required.

Most laptop vendors have a small area allocated in the HDD where a repair disk will be placed.
There should be an option at bootup to boot into this repair area to get the process going.

On a default Win7 installation, you won't see the separate partition, as Windows explorer is set to not display system files and folders.
The drive is most likely allocated to D: drive(which you won't see).
Change the settings in Windows to display system files and folders and D: drive should come up as a new drive in your Computer directory.

The manual is the best place to see how to boot into recovery mode tho.

[ktoopi]

Not sure what he did yet .......but the good news is the young engineer who works for my husband who is also a computer tech head, has sorted the problem and my computer is fixed!!! YAY Just waiting eagerly for hubby to get home from work and set it all back up for me

Thanks for all your replies everyone
Woop Woop

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I just found out they used the link that Kym suggested and an office copy of Windows 7 to reboot......so thanks Kym for the link