Old IBM Thinkpad that's admin protected

I have an old, but working, IBM ThinkPad I got from a company that went
bankrupt. It runs Microsoft NT 4.0, has a modem, a working floppy drive, and
runs very well. The only problem is since it was a company's computer, it
has been protect with their passwords. I want access to some of the Control
Panels, including Modems and Printers. I can access the MS-DOS prompt, if
that helps. Can the passwords be removed?
--
Michael Wilcox
mjwilco at yahoo dot com
Essential Tools for the Web Developer - http://mikewilcox.t35.com

"Michael Wilcox" writes:

I have an old, but working, IBM ThinkPad I got from a company that went
bankrupt. It runs Microsoft NT 4.0, has a modem, a working floppy drive, and
runs very well. The only problem is since it was a company's computer, it
has been protect with their passwords. I want access to some of the Control
Panels, including Modems and Printers. I can access the MS-DOS prompt, if
that helps. Can the passwords be removed?

The easiest way I can think of is to reinstall the operating system.

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Rename c:\winnt\system32\config\sam to something else. You
can then log on as Administrator with a blank password.


"Todd H." wrote in message
...
"Michael Wilcox" writes:

I have an old, but working, IBM ThinkPad I got from a company that went
bankrupt. It runs Microsoft NT 4.0, has a modem, a working floppy drive,
and
runs very well. The only problem is since it was a company's computer,
it
has been protect with their passwords. I want access to some of the
Control
Panels, including Modems and Printers. I can access the MS-DOS prompt,
if
that helps. Can the passwords be removed?

The easiest way I can think of is to reinstall the operating system.

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

You've gotta be kidding me about this, would this really work?

Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
Rename c:\winnt\system32\config\sam to something else. You
can then log on as Administrator with a blank password.


"Todd H." wrote in message
...

"Michael Wilcox" writes:


I have an old, but working, IBM ThinkPad I got from a company that went
bankrupt. It runs Microsoft NT 4.0, has a modem, a working floppy drive,

and

runs very well. The only problem is since it was a company's computer,

it

has been protect with their passwords. I want access to some of the

Control

Panels, including Modems and Printers. I can access the MS-DOS prompt,

if

that helps. Can the passwords be removed?

The easiest way I can think of is to reinstall the operating system.

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

If you can gain physical access to a Windows machine then
you can gain access to its files. There are several ways of
achieving this, the SAM file being one of them.


"Thomas Florkiewicz" wrote in message
...
You've gotta be kidding me about this, would this really work?

Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
Rename c:\winnt\system32\config\sam to something else. You
can then log on as Administrator with a blank password.


"Todd H." wrote in message
...

"Michael Wilcox" writes:


I have an old, but working, IBM ThinkPad I got from a company that went
bankrupt. It runs Microsoft NT 4.0, has a modem, a working floppy
drive,

and

runs very well. The only problem is since it was a company's computer,

it

has been protect with their passwords. I want access to some of the

Control

Panels, including Modems and Printers. I can access the MS-DOS prompt,

if

that helps. Can the passwords be removed?

The easiest way I can think of is to reinstall the operating system.

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote in message
...
Rename c:\winnt\system32\config\sam to something else. You
can then log on as Administrator with a blank password.


Even the Administrator cannot manipulate the SAM file.
The only way to do it is to make that particular installation inactive i.e.
boot from another instance of NT4.0 (its quite easy to install a second copy
of NT4.0 on the same partition) or by booting from Linux based floppies with
NTFS capability:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

"Alien Zord" wrote in message
...
"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote in message
...
Rename c:\winnt\system32\config\sam to something else. You
can then log on as Administrator with a blank password.


Even the Administrator cannot manipulate the SAM file.
The only way to do it is to make that particular installation inactive
i.e.
boot from another instance of NT4.0 (its quite easy to install a second
copy
of NT4.0 on the same partition) or by booting from Linux based floppies
with
NTFS capability:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html



The OP said that he can access the machine with a
DOS prompt. I assume that he means "DOS" when
he says "DOS", i.e. that he can boot the machine
with a Win98 disk and that the WinNT is installed
on a FAT partition.

If this is correct then there is nothing to stop him
from renaming the SAM file.

On the other hand, if he meant "Command Prompt",
not DOS, then the SAM is locked and cannot be
manipulated. If so then he would need to use the
methods you propose. Alternatively he could install
his disk as a slave disk in some other WinNT
machine and rename the SAM from there.

taking another look at the OP, i think he means the DOS prompt, or the
command line from win nt. in this case, the second part of pegasus's
post would apply. try to access the hdd by putting it as slave in
another computer. if you only have a w98 machine to do this on, then use
a program such as readntfs or something like that to access the ntfs
partition.

Pegasus (MVP) wrote:

"Alien Zord" wrote in message
...

"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote in message
...

Rename c:\winnt\system32\config\sam to something else. You
can then log on as Administrator with a blank password.



Even the Administrator cannot manipulate the SAM file.
The only way to do it is to make that particular installation inactive

i.e.

boot from another instance of NT4.0 (its quite easy to install a second

copy

of NT4.0 on the same partition) or by booting from Linux based floppies

with

NTFS capability:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html




The OP said that he can access the machine with a
DOS prompt. I assume that he means "DOS" when
he says "DOS", i.e. that he can boot the machine
with a Win98 disk and that the WinNT is installed
on a FAT partition.

If this is correct then there is nothing to stop him
from renaming the SAM file.

On the other hand, if he meant "Command Prompt",
not DOS, then the SAM is locked and cannot be
manipulated. If so then he would need to use the
methods you propose. Alternatively he could install
his disk as a slave disk in some other WinNT
machine and rename the SAM from there.

"Thomas Florkiewicz" wrote in message
...
taking another look at the OP, i think he means the DOS prompt, or the
command line from win nt. in this case, the second part of pegasus's
post would apply. try to access the hdd by putting it as slave in
another computer. if you only have a w98 machine to do this on, then use
a program such as readntfs or something like that to access the ntfs
partition.

I'm afraid the part of your post that refers to Win98 is somewhat
misleading. With the tool "readntfs" you probably mean "ntfsdos.exe"
from www.sysinternals.com. The free version of this program will
give you read-only access to an ntfs partition under Win98. It is
therefore quite unsuitable for renaming SAM. The read/write version
could do it but is quite expensive.

Pegasus (MVP) wrote:

If you can gain physical access to a Windows machine then
you can gain access to its files. There are several ways of
achieving this, the SAM file being one of them.


LOL and they call that security?
--

Stacey