My sister just purchased a Gateway PC 4 days ago, she isn't as computer literate as I am so when the tech came to install her cable modem he apparently took it upon himself to set a password ...he could be barely speak english but the problem is that none of the passwords that he has written down will work...after doing some research online I see that vista allows U to make a password reset disk but this has to be done before U set a password .......and this was not done...so in the meanwhile we are locked out of her pc...I tried to do a reinstall of her operating system but vista will not accept the serial # that came with the disk....please help!!

complain to the cable company, tell them what happened If the guy cant/wont put in the password, then it becomes a legal matter as well as a technical problem. It is possilbe to have your password reset, but most places charge increadible ammounts of money. There are free tools for windows XP and 2000, but I don't think they're vista compatible. good luck.

In addition to the above post... My sister just purchased a Gateway PC 4 days ago Question: Did it come with Vista pre-installed? I tried to do a reinstall of her operating system but vista will not accept the serial # that came with the disk.... What disc or do you mean the serial # that you read off the COA sticker attached to Gateway machine? i_XpUser

are you using the vista upgrade disc that comes with the computer or are you using the recovery disc burned from the gateway? all computers besides toshiba require you to burn a recovery disc now. if your using the recovery disc burned from the computer then look at the windows vista serial number found on the case itself. if your using the vista upgrade cd found with the computer you have to go to windows and buy a product key to upgrade your vista computer to any of the new versions of vista