stopping passwords on windows

[jaminb]

trying to stop a password someone's put on my shared home computer on windows, split between 4 of us. Does anyone know if/how this is possible>?

[Kryten]

Not sure what you mean here? Do yo umean someone has put a password on the computer and you can't login?

[jaminb]

Not sure what you mean here? Do yo umean someone has put a password on the computer and you can't login?

No someone in the family, as in everyone has to click their username to actually get to desktop. we're not sure what they're up to/

[Kryten]

Just login as an admin and you should be able to see everything they are doing.

[IAmATeaf]

No someone in the family, as in everyone has to click their username to actually get to desktop. we're not sure what they're up to/

Still not clear what the exact question/problem is? Would you care to elaborate?

[Dack]

Simple solution is to download knoppix, burn it onto a CD and then boot. You can then look into the 'protected' directories under each account (I assume you are on about looking at whats under the 'documents and settings' directory which you can not get to even as an admin unless you take ownership)

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/

[jaminb]

just mean that computer has been set up so that everyone in family has a logon screen-after which each goes into own private desktop area, and programs are only installed on whoever is active-it's basically like 4 computers. None of the logins includes admin status that I can see and some have passwords set up on them which I as a computer illiterate would like to bypass.
Cheers for the suggestion Dack but I'm sure that's well beyond my abilities, I didn't actually understand the latter part of your post!

[PlexShaw]

So what you're saying is that you would like to get rid of the passwords that have been set up on some of the user accounts, as you think there is something dodgy going on?

Which version of XP is this? Home or Professional?

The easiest way to do this is to access the hidden Windows Administrator account (accessible only in Safe Mode on XP Home) and then delete the password using the User Accounts applet in the Control Panel.

Are you sure this family member has not just put a password on their account to protect their private data from other nosey family members? :suspect:

[jaminb]

think its home version, how do i go to safe mode?

[PlexShaw]

I could type out how to do it, but it's far easier to let the Microsoft Knowledge Base do the talking:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315222

I also suggest you take a look at this article for info on removing passwords (read it fully):

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=321305

[jaminb]

thanks again