Hi, My daughter has forgotten her Windows Vista Home Basic user account password. She can use her laptop via another user account but cannot use defrag or install 3rd party software since it asks for the password we dont know. The laptop is getting slower and slower obviously requiring a defrag and other maintenance which we cannot do. We have no need to get back into the old user account but just need to be allowed to do maintenance on the system. Can someone please tell me how to resolve this problem.
Best regards, Peter Sullivan.

Peter Sullivan, December 2009

Peter just google the term "free vista password recovery" there are some excellent linux programs which you can burn to cd and boot the system with to show the forgotten password.

password bandit ;-), December 2009

Take it to a Computer Shop with proof of ownership and ID and I am sure that they will be able to help you.

I am sure that will understand my reluctance to post on an open forum the techniques for hacking passwords. There are far too many Laptops being stolen often including violence and so I am not inclined to help the perpetrators of such crimes to profit from them.

T, December 2009