My friend's father died- and he is trying to find letters written to all the kids on his dads computer- but he cant figure out the admin password. HELP! how do we disable/recover/change the password without loosing all the files???

press the escape key on when asked and it will log log you on. However you can't make any changes to the system if you do that. (thats what i remember, if i'm wrong please tell me as i newver bother with a password on a 9x system)

There is no such thing as an Admin password in Windows 98. The passwords that do exist are only to allow different users to set their own preferences, there is no security attached to Windows 98 passwords.

The easiest thing to do is when prompted for user name and password just create a new user. You will get into windows with default settings then all files are accessible from Windows Explorer.

Stuart

It might be a bios password. Does it ask for the password prior to windows starting to load?

On the motherboard there should be a 'clear cmos' or 'clear password' jumper. Jump it to the 'clear' position, turn the computer on for a second or two, turn it off and put the jumper back in the 'normal' position. Then start the computer. You'll probably be prompted to go to setup. Set the date and time. The other default settings will probably be OK.

Actually, it's hard to say

If it's simply the standard Microshaft network password, you should be able to just hit cancel.

If this is, for example, a Thinkpad, or other machine, which has built in password capability, there is just about no way to get around the Thinkpad hard drive password.

On the other hand, this could be some third party password software.

We will have to wait and see what password we are talking about.

As so often happens, a ;itt;e shy on info.

Dunno what's passworded; dunno if it's a laptop.

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2