2003-02-16

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Brian's Buzz | Newsletter - XP Passwords..rendered useless... "Reader Tony DeMartino alerted me to the problem, which all administrators of Windows XP machines should immediately take to heart: Anyone with a Windows 2000 CD can boot up a Windows XP box and start the Windows 2000 Recovery Console, a troubleshooting program. Windows XP then allows the visitor to operate as Administrator without a password, even if the Administrator account has a strong password. The visitor can also operate in any of the other user accounts that may be present on the XP machine, even if those accounts have passwords. Unbelievably, the visitor can copy files from the hard disk to a floppy disk or other removable media - something even an Administrator is normally prevented from doing when using the Recovery Console." ... Quoted here as I need to get access to Caroles new laptop to network it to our other machines & internet but her work IT guys won't give me the admin password. Her user is so locked down it's just impossible to achieve anything... I can understand their reluctance as I'm always a bit dubious when people ask me to do similar at work but I'm hardly a weekend tinkerer, I'm gonna so hate myself if I have to bring up the fact that I started working in IT the same year they were born... Anyway this could get me out of this fix & at least let me do something on the machine; it so pisses me off to see such a sexy machine in such an impotent slumber...stay tuned...