Bypassing admin login without password (windows)

Someone I know just got a laptop used but doesn't have the password, nor do they have a means of contacting the previous owner to ask. Is there an easy way to get around this without reformatting?

Oh, it's running windows 7, too.

Can you make a Guest account?

Can you make a Guest account?

I don't have the laptop, haha. I need a method that I can describe over the phone.

Nope.

There is.
I don't know what it is, but there is.
I changed my password on my laptop once (as admin, only account on the computer) and then proceeded to completely forget said password.
Took it to our computer guy, he did something and then my account no longer needed a password.
I realize that this is mainly unhelpful because it doesn't tell you what the method is, but a method exists.

It's not something she can tell someone how to do over the phone.

Therefore the answer to her actual question is no.

It requires either an already existing recovery disk or specialized software.

I have no idea what said method is so I'm going to take your word for it that what Mark did to my computer cannot be easily communicated.

from Hiren Boot CD:

Password Renew 1.1 Utility to set/reset windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 (32bit only) passwords.

I never tried this thou

If its a newer laptop you can restore the OS using the recovery partition on the HDD, such as for toshibas hold down "0" 1st splash screen. If there is any data that is needed from the old OS which seems unlikely you can use a SATA connector to the current HDD to another computer, of all else fails bring it to your local computer shop, most have a disc that can wipe passwords from windows, but will charge a fee (around 30). Hope this helps (my best recomendation would be full OS restore from the HDD, nice clean slate).

Yes, there is a way to figure it out, but it will only work for simple attacks (a-zA-Z0-9 on less than 5 - 7 letters). http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

The only way you could describe how to do it over the phone is if she isn't computer illiterate and knows how to burn ISOs and boot to a CD.

Yeah, that's not happening. XTOTHEL has told me that there may be a copy of the Windows key on the bottom so all she needs to do is reinstall windows and use that key. Hopefully.

The following guide should work: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-v...rescue-cd/

The link to download the rescue cd is on this page: http://www.sysresccd.org/Download
(The guide doesn't clearly link to it at the start.)

Can they go into safe mode by pressing a key at startup or through the menu? The main admin account should popup instead of the regular ones I believe. If that account is password protected then try another way I guess.

It's amazing how easy it is to provide answers when no one bothers reading the question