Forgot admin password

Cbeck527

Cbeck527

New Member
I was trying to access my administrator account to change some system settings and there was a password. I do remember setting a password but I have no idea what it is. is there any way that I can reset the password??????
 
there is a way but i don't know if its against forum rules, u gotta make a linux bootable disc...
 
Heya

As much as we would like to help you out, it is not really in accordance with our rules and against the very security of people's accounts. Sorry, but I am afraid that the following cannot be discussed here.

JAN :D
 
I'm not discussing breaking into it, but cant u go into control settings on your main account and change it to something like head account or something of that sort... and then u can change the password on the administrator account... because i remember when my brother would piss me off i would always change the computers passwords... but im not sure if it works with administrator... (i dont think this breaks the rules not software was brought into the subject? just account settings...)
 
If your main account is an Administrator account, you can use that one to change the settings you need to. If it's a Limited Account, you can't use it to change or remove the password on an Administrator account (this would defeat the whole purpose of having Limited Accounts!)
 
the account is a limited account, that why I was looking to use the administrator account.

If this breaks the forum rules, I dont wanna talk about it ill look for it on google
 
Okay ill try again and now i wont post the site url, ill just give you some links to some CLEAN tools that should be able to reset your admin password.

I would try this first if i were you, should work on xp as well.
Or Emergency Boot CD

EDIT: And the reason why I asked if you had another account on your computer was, in case you wanna do it the simple way, you could backup your harddrive and reinstall windows.
 
Any Linux distro have access to your windows files, but that wont solve your problem. The passwords aint stored in a .exe file for you to open just like that. Its stored as a hash in another protected file, and thats fishy, doesnt suit to discuss matters like that here. So i reccomend you try those tools i listed instead, they should work.
 
on this occasion i guess if the password is less than 14 characters it's stored as LM hash and if more it's stored as NT hash and that would be harder to reset ?
somebody correct me if i'm wrong
 
The LM hash is hashed with the DES algorithm which has a block size of 64 bits (8 bytes), and key size 56 bits (7 bytes). That way if you double these two hashes you get a 14 byte hash. But naturally two 7 byte hashes is way weaker than one 14 byte hash.

The NT is more secure yes, its hashed with a MD4 algorithm, but still pretty fragile. MD4 hash size is 128 bits (16 bytes). MD4s limit is 2^64 bits, a lot. Windows password limit is 256 bytes, which equals 128 characters, also a lot. But dont get fooled, a 128 character password aint stronger than a 16 charter password, because of the hash size. You just got 8 equally weak hashes to handle instead of 1.

It depends on how many characters Cbecks password is then, but i dont think charcter lenght or hash type matters much when resetting. Those factors are important if you try to crack the password. Its resetting im talking about, no fishy activities involved, just to clear that out. Those tools should anyway be able to reset it.
 
JustCallMeBob said:
The LM hash is hashed with the DES algorithm which has a block size of 64 bits (8 bytes), and key size 56 bits (7 bytes). That way if you double these two hashes you get a 14 byte hash. But naturally two 7 byte hashes is way weaker than one 14 byte hash.

The NT is more secure yes, its hashed with a MD4 algorithm, but still pretty fragile. MD4 hash size is 128 bits (16 bytes). MD4s limit is 2^64 bits, a lot. Windows password limit is 256 bytes, which equals 128 characters, also a lot. But dont get fooled, a 128 character password aint stronger than a 16 charter password, because of the hash size. You just got 8 equally weak hashes to handle instead of 1.

It depends on how many characters Cbecks password is then, but i dont think charcter lenght or hash type matters much when resetting. Those factors are important if you try to crack the password. Its resetting im talking about, no fishy activities involved, just to clear that out. Those tools should anyway be able to reset it.
Click to expand...

thanks for the useful information
LM hash is not strong anymore it can get cracked in seconds ... i attened a security session few months ago "Patrick Hynds" and he was talking about that LM and NT stuff and he recommended a long password which is harder to crack ... anyway this is off this topic ... but thanks for the info anyways
 
Anytime mate. This is more off topic, but rather interesting if you ask me. How to avoid LM hashes? The easy way is naturally to make passwords 14 characters or longer, but what if you wanna make shorter passwords? Then you can turn off LM hashes in the registry (but back up first) here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
Set nolmhash to value 1, and you will use NT hashes instead. A security tip for rather paranoid people like myself :D .
 
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