If you are an office employee or a student at some university, school or college, chances are that you are using a locked down computer. That is, you are given an account that is having less privileges. You might be lacking permissions to install most of the applications, copy files to certain folders, change themes or screensavers, do some tweaking of the system, or pretty much do anything other than work or research.
In today’s GCS Computer Tricks, we introduce you to a new program –
PCLoginNow. This is a tool meant to reset administrator password for Windows machine in case you forget it. (Yeah right!). The feature that we loved most and compelled us to write this post is that the program can convert your account from an under-privileged account to an administrator account. Sweet.
Before we dive into nitty gritties of getting you administrator powers in any Windows box, let’s see a quick review of this program:
Pros:
* Success rate – 100%. Yes, you are guaranteed to get admin powers in all Windows machines.
* Freeware – Absolutely zero cost. Other similar applications cost hundreds of dollars.
* Correctly detects if you have more than one Windows OS installed.
* Works on Windows Vista, Windows XP/XP with SP2, Windows 2003 server , Windows 2000/NT
* Supports all Windows file systems - NTFS, FAT16, FAT32.
* In addition to resetting the administrator password and elevating your limited account to an administrator account, this program can also lock out and unlock all user accounts in the machine.
* Noob friendly – You don’t need to have a PhD in Nuke Physics to run this program. However, having balls of steel is recommended in case your IT administrator finds out what you did.
Cons:
* You need to have physical access to the computer.
* You should be able to boot from CD for this to work. If your administrator has disabled booting from CD, this won’t work.
* Has been proven allergic to network IT administrators. So you have to take care to keep this program away from them.
* In certain circumstances, this tool is proven to result in some-not-so-smart employees getting fired and some students getting suspended. Taking regular precautions are recommended.
Enough said. Let’s get out hands dirty. Just follow these steps to take yourself from a zero to hero:
1. Download PCLoginNow iso live cd file from
SourceForge.net. (About 55Mb)
2. Burn the downloaded iso file to a CD.
3. Insert this disc into the drive and boot your computer from the CDROM.
4. You should get the following screen. Hit next.
5. You will get a list of Windows OS installed in your machine. Select the correct OS you want and hit next.
6. Select the user account you wish to upgrade to an administrator. Select the check-box “is Administrator”. To reset the administrator password, select the administrator account and select the check-box “password is empty”. Hit next.
7. # Click on OK to reboot the machine.
If everything went correctly, you will have administrative powers when the computer boots up. What was your experience cracking the box? Tell us in the comments.
Happy Hacking.
PCLoginNow |
Download
