How to Bypass a Windows XP Login Password

It's 11PM. You've just gotten home, and sat down at your room mate's computer to type that 2000-word term paper thats due tomorrow morning. You sit down at your room mate's computer, and wait patiently for the Windows XP loading screen to disappear. After what seems like an eternity, you're finally staring at the login screen. As you punch in his password, the moron used his old girlfriend's birthday, you idly wonder when he going to change that. You hit the enter key, and you're rewarded with a beep. Uh oh. You try again, praying that he hasn't changed his password. No luck. Caps-lock key off? Check. Still no good. Your stomach churns, the bile rises in your throat, you're screwed! Actually, not really. Changing the Windows password is easier than you think.

First things first, try the guest account. Simply enter 'Guest' in the user name box, or click on the account labeled Guest. Sometimes people will have these account enabled without even realizing it, and many times they are left without a password. If this doesn't work for you, or you require a little bit more access than the Guest account provides, read on.

Next up is Windows XP's built in 'Administrator' account. This account is created during Windows installation, and is not accessible under normal circumstances. Many computers, especially those that come from Dell or similar companies, leave the Administrator account without password protection.

To get to this account, boot the computer into safe mode. You can do this by holding down the F8 key during startup, and selecting Safe Mode from the Windows boot menu. Once the computer boots into Safe Mode, you'll have access to the Administrator account. Things will look a little weird in Safe Mode, but don't worry, things will be fine when you boot normally again.

Once Windows finishes booting, try getting into the Administrator account, leaving the password field blank. If you're unable to get in this way, then there is a password on the account, and unless you can guess it, you're going to have to try something else, and you can skip the next paragraph. If you're in, then there's no limit to what you can do.

First things first, lets get out of safe mode. Go into the control panel, and open up "User Accounts." Create a new account for yourself, and make sure to give it Administrative access. When you restart again into normal mode, you'll be able to access this new account that you just created. Once you do this, you'll have complete access to whatever you need. You can use this to reset passwords on other accounts, in case you locked yourself out, or you can just use it to get to things you might not otherwise be able to get to.

If the Administrator account is passworded, then things get more difficult. Unless there's another personal account on the computer you can access, you're left with only one option, and its not a good one. I do not suggest using this, ever.

Windows XP stores password information in encrypted files called SAM files. A Google search for SAM file editor will return plenty of results, and you'll find several programs that you can burn to a bootable CD and use to edit these files. I've never personally had to use one of these, so I can't recommend one. Using these editors can render your computer unusable if anything goes wrong. The risk involved in doing this makes an absolute last resort. The tiniest error in this will corrupt files and lock you out of Windows at best; it will destroy your Windows install and force a reformat at worst.