Chatter Of The Squirrel

Tech: Offline NT Password & Registry Editor

June 16, 2008 on 7:08 pm | In Me! | No Comments

This NT Password tool is incredible.

It can boot into your Windows machine, and reset your password. And a lot more. But this is mainly what you want this for.

Say you forgot the password to your Windows machine. You use this and make 2 floppies. Boot from the floppy. And in 4 minutes, your password is blanked. You can now log in without a password.

Very useful when your IT department inherits a computer that an ex-staff installed.

I first found this tool several years ago, when a friend came to me for help. He was servicing a cheap-ass China-man company that purchased a Windows server for file sharing purposes. Years after the purchase, they discovered that they can share a printer from the server too! (These companies are usually 7-10yrs backwards IT-wise cos they never have permanent IT staff.) My friend sold them the printer, and discovered that the Admin account is locked, and nobody in the company knows the password.

Worst case scenario: I have to Image the harddisk, before reinstalling the Windows Server OS (no matter how many times I’ve done it, I wouldn’t trust that a Wind’ohs installation might not randomly kill all data.) Then hours to hunt for drivers. I could charge this China-man through the nose for these mind-numbing hours.

But, trusting in the inherent weaknesses in M$ software… I Googled for an alternative.

And it brought me to NT Password Tool. This thing is so great that I’m gonna mirror it here, just in case the original webhost ever goes away. And so that I can always find it when I need it.

The first file, unzips into a floppy disk image. It comes with a batchfile and RAWrite to help you create the Linux bootdisk. All the amazing-ness condensed in one floppy disk.

You also need the second file, which include drivers for almost any harddrives out there.  Put it on a 2nd floppy in it’s zipped form.

There’s also a CDROM image at the website if you’re hacking a computer without a floppy drive.

The image boots. Magic happens. And Windows is defeated.

So I saved myself a whole bunch of effort. I spared the client from risking their data, giving better turn around time for their critical network server. And I charged them less, a measely few hundred.

But I didn’t get gratitude. The China-man, or was it a China-woman, I can’t remember exactly, saw how fast the computer came back. Immediately thought that it must be because it was a bloody simple job and I was taking him for a ride. He refused to pay for the job.

One of the many reasons I find this business incompatible with scruples. Everyone treats you like a dirty car mechanic, except that you never really have them by their balls and squeeze them until they learn what’s what.