Member Avatar for hvuser

I volunteered to empty 2 warehouses full of older PCs for the church. The PCs were donated by a school district. The church was planning on sending them to Peru, but things didn't work out for them.

For my efforts, I planned on taking 5 or 6 of the PCs and giving them to kids, grandkids, and/or friends, etc. Even though most of them only have Pentiums or Pentium -IIs, they will work for what they will use them for.

MY DELIMA: There are a few good PCs that boot-up and present me with a Logon and Password window. Some of them I could simply CANCEL and move on, but others are definitely requiring a PW.

MY QUESTION: Is there a quick and easy way to RESET or BYPASS the Logon Window For Win-98 and also for WIN-XP (two are loaded with XP)??

NOTE: I am not a Geek, but admire those that are. I need fairly simple instructions to get me through this problem.

My kids and grandkids will surely appreciate the help.

Thanks for your time and efforts.
Dean

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A compact, safe workflow to get those donated PCs usable without guessing passwords. has a good project; and pointed to a couple of starting ideas. The steps below minimize data loss and legal risk, and give a clear path whether the goal is to recover files or prepare clean machines for kids.

First, protect the data. Before attempting password fixes, copy the user folders off the drive. The easiest non-technical options are (a) remove the drive and attach it to a working PC with a cheap IDE/SATA-to-USB adapter, or (b) boot the machine from a Linux “Live” USB/DVD and copy C:\Documents and Settings (XP) or My Documents (Win9x) to an external disk. Label drives and keep one full backup image if possible.

Next, choose a recovery route. For non-destructive tries, there are tools that attempt to recover old XP passwords; they sometimes succeed on legacy hardware. For more reliable access, there are bootable password-reset tools that clear local Windows account passwords — these work on local accounts but will not work if the PC is joined to a school domain. Important cautions: resetting a Windows password can break EFS-encrypted files and can result in a new profile (old profile data still on disk but not attached to the user). That is why the backup step is essential.

If reuse is the goal, wiping and reinstalling a supported OS (or installing a lightweight Linux for very old machines) is often the safest long-term choice—clean system, up-to-date security, and a straightforward standard user account for kids. Test the whole process on one machine first, keep product keys and drivers, and avoid attempting password bypass on machines you do not have explicit right to modify. If any step feels risky, a local repair shop can do the imaging/reset safely and quickly.

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Member Avatar for Nick Evan

Welcome to Daniweb,

First of all: You posted in the wrong section, this is the only forum on this community where problems won't be solved. I've asked to move your question to the Windows forum.

Then: If the previous owner of the computer wasn't a geek too, the XP-machines will still have a ' Administrator ' account. This account is automaticly created when installing windows. So if you type ' Administrator ' as username and leave the passwordfield blank, you might have a change. If this doesn't work you will have to reinstall windows.

Windows 98 will boot if you just press 'cancel' in the logonscreen.

Regards Niek

Member Avatar for gdpafred

You might go to
http://www.clearallhistory.com/delete-passwords.html
maybe this will help.
Also you might go to
and give it a read.
Found the sites doing a Google search...

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