Offline Password Reset

It's fun to get paid to hack.

We got a new laptop at work that had just arrived from the Provost's office. They did a good job setting it up, but somehow in the shuffle, we weren't told what the administrator password was.

After trying the usual suspects, we resorted to Plan B -- a bootable, highly-customized Linux CD specializing in Windows password removal. In less than five minutes (three of which were spent finding a USB CD drive to plug in), the admin password was gone. (Security? We don't need no steenkin' security...)

http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

(Use it with caution; if any encrypted files are on the machine, resetting the password will make them unreadable.)

Enjoy -- and remember, kids -- be a Jedi, not a Sith.