WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL - CANNOT LOG IN

Question

Well - looks like I messed it up this time....   I have an IBM ThinkPad notebook running windows XP Professional....   It is a hand me down that I purchased from my ex-employer when I left their employment several months ago...   I used it at the office on their network domain....   When I started using using it at home I just signed on with the same user ID and password and used the local PC domain instead of the office network domain - worked fine....   Well - I've been using it at home for months and have many files I stored that I use daily....   I also have a little peer to peer network set up at home that uses a common workgroup name....   Last night I decided to set up this laptop to join this workgroup so I could share files and printers with the 2 other desktop PC's I have at home....   After entering the workgroup name on the laptop I rebooted as instructed by windows....   Now the XP Profeesional log on screen comes up with the same user ID I used when it was part of the office domain but the password does not work - nothing does!!!   In fact - there is no domain drop down box now....   I am not aware of any administrator sign on - tried that also...   Help!   What can I do to sign back in?   Thanks!

mombodog · Answer

Here is the deal, you should have created an account with admin rights, before changing to a workgroup, then log into that account after the change,that being said, try old passwords that you may have had in the past.

You can also do a ctrl alt delete twice at the logon screen, then log in as administrator with no password, hopefully one was never set on the default admin account.

Message Edited by mombodog on 07-02-2007 10:52 AM

bdubill · Answer

Well - I tried the ctl alt delete twice at logon with the user administrator...   No luck - same result....   Do I have any other options?   thanks

mombodog · Answer

use this, then try the administrator account again   http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305

bdubill · Answer

Mombodog - this article worked like a charm!!!   You are a star!   Many thanks!!   The only issue I had was it did not show my user name when I got into the control panel after shift + F10....   But it did show the _Administrator user which is the one I used to get back in after setting it up to not require a password...   Thanks again!!!

Windows General

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