So I installed a Windows XP VM the other day with a corporate ISO file. The initial login screen showed the administrator account and another corporate specific account. I logged in as administrator and applied the latest patches. Upon rebooting the system, only the corporate specific account was available. I was unable to find a way to log in as administrator and I did not know the password for the corporate specific account.
How could I log in as administrator?
While this is probably common knowledge to most, I had never experienced this issue before. Luckily, I found the following Microsoft KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321305. It stated:
Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Professional
To log on to a computer as the administrator to reset a password, try the following steps.
- Log on as an administrator.
- Restart the computer.
- Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE two times, and then type the name of the administrator user account.
- In the Password box, type the administrator password, and then click OK.Note If the administrator password is set to a blank password, do not type a password before you click OK.
1b states that pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE twice will allow you to enter and log into the administrator account. Upon trying this, it worked as expected! Something so simple that I was unaware of. Hopefully someone else finds this as useful as me.
© 2010, Steve Flanders. All rights reserved.
