windows password

[Bill]

My widowed daughter recently retrieved her late husbands laptop from
their storage bin to use for a project. Unfortunately, when she turned
it on it prompted with her late husband's name and "Password!". I
haven't looked at the thing, but it's not a new laptop and I suspect it
was running W98. As I recall, that wasn't a strong password and from a
few years back I remember there were messages about how to get around it.
Probably a common issue, but looking back through posted messages in
this group (mostly porn ads & $$begs) I didn't see any such messages.
Anybody remember the W98 P/W workaround?

Thanks,
Bill

[GreenieLeBrun]

"Bill" <wil...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xln9i.17082$Ut6....@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...

Basically you boot to DOS, go to the windows directory and delete the .pwl
file/s.

http://www.governmentsecurity.org/articles/BreakingWindows98Passwords.php

[Bill]

Thanks. I'll pass this info on to her.

[The Computer Dood]

Win95/98 does not validate passwords like NT/2000/XP does. The password
is mainly to set up a "USER PROFILE". So that each user can have
his/her profile remembered. Like they said, either change the password,
or delete the .PWL file, once you are in.
Tell her the most important part is the retrieve the data. Win95 is
PRE-USB, so you may not have a good means to get data off the machine,
unless you have a floppy (sometimes built in), or can attach to the
internet. Old hardware can lose data quickly.

[Mark Gregory]

If you don't know how to get into DOS, switch PC off and start tapping F8
key - eventually you'll come to a menu that will present you with some
options - one of them will be to go into dos

mark G
"GreenieLeBrun" <Greeni...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f45ksm$kjr$1...@registered.motzarella.org...