Computer password

I was trying to password protect a file but ended up password protecting the whole computer. How do I undo this so I can restart and run the computer without entering a password? Thanks.

When you restart, hit the F# key you see on the start-up page and you'll be taken into the bios. There is an option in there to reset the bios administrator password. This is assuming you somehow set a bios password.

If you just set the user password (for instance, I have my profile password protected because I am set as the administrator in user options and it keeps the kids from accidentally logging on as me. They have their own profile that doesn't allow changes to the computer in case they visit a page that wants to install bad stuff), just go into your control panel, and then users, and change accounts. You can remove the password in there. I suspect this is probably where you set your password. You'll need to be logged on as an administrator which you likely are since you were able to set the password.

First what exactly did you password protect? Does windows boot and if so what OS?

I followed Sting's reply and I think it's fixed. Thanks.

pull the battery out of the motherboard. let it set for a few minutes, While in there look for password jumpers, will say CLEAR on the jumpers,, with three pins, take jumper of the pair its on, put on other pin to common shared pin. Then put back to where jumper was before installing battery and rebooting.

I did that yesterday just screwin around. I don't remember how I got out of it,but it was a pain signing in every time & now I don't have too--so I musta done something right. ---wilder,what the hell did you just explain??

Is this suggesting that my windows 7 logon password to protect my laptop and all of its files are for naught and anyone can defeat password protection?

snuffy, anybody that knows what they're doing can do whatever they want with anybody's computer

snuffy wrote:Is this suggesting that my windows 7 logon password to protect my laptop and all of its files are for naught and anyone can defeat password protection?

There are numerous ways to crack passwords on various versions of windows. I don't know if encrypted files in Win7 can be easily cracked or not. It's easy to change permissions if you are an admin.

snuffy wrote:Is this suggesting that my windows 7 logon password to protect my laptop and all of its files are for naught and anyone can defeat password protection?

As others have said there are numerous ways to look at the files. One convenient way is to boot the computer from another operating system contained on a CD, DVD or Flash drive. Then that operating system can see all your files and read all but those that have been individually encrypted. For a commonly used external portable OS see:

http://www.knoppix.net/

If you want to securely encrypt your files you need hardware encryption. The encryption algorithm is part of hardware logic not software on your computer. One such device is "Ironkey", a flash drive with built in hardware encryption. There are many other useful security features available with such a system. See:

https://www.ironkey.com/

snuffy wrote:Is this suggesting that my windows 7 logon password to protect my laptop and all of its files are for naught and anyone can defeat password protection?

If you want an analogy passwords are just like the locks on your front door. It will keep someone out unless someone is determined to get in. You need to encrypt them, this is like turning your house into a vault.

freetown fred wrote:I did that yesterday just screwin around. I don't remember how I got out of it,but it was a pain signing in every time & now I don't have too--so I musta done something right. ---wilder,what the hell did you just explain??

told you a way to clear passwords.

I kinda figured that. I think I'm gonna have to stick to farmin Happy Easter wilder

wilder11354 wrote:

freetown fred wrote:I did that yesterday just screwin around. I don't remember how I got out of it,but it was a pain signing in every time & now I don't have too--so I musta done something right. ---wilder,what the hell did you just explain??

told you a way to clear passwords.

While on the topic this why I can't recover passwords for members here here. They are encrypted, the forum uses a one way encryption method where the key is the password itself. That doesn't mean I couldn't easily obtain them since they are submitted through plain text. The reason they are encrytpted because so many people will use same user name and password on every site. If for example someone were able to hack into the server and obtain the user database they would have trouble* obtaining the passwords. Among others the issue arises that if they could obtain both the username, password and email address they might be able to gain to gain access to other things like your web based email from a third party.

*It's not perfect system and with enough computing power and knowledge the encryption used for the passwords can be broken.