Hello, A friend of mine just bought a computer from craigslist that has windows XP Pro installed on it. The problem is that he can't use the computer because when he turns it on it's asking him for a password to log into windows. He is unable to get in contact with the person he bought the computer from to ask him about the password. Is there anything he can do besides buying a new operating system?1 person needs an answerI do too

Start the computer in Safe mode and log into the built-in account named Administrator . You'll have to know the password, if any, for that account. Once in, go to Control Panel > User Accounts and change the password for your regular account.Boulder Computer MavenMicrosoft Most Valuable Professional

On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 01:27:30 +0000, stevec8831 wrote:Hello, A friend of mine just bought a computer from craigslist that has windows XP Pro installed on it. The problem is that he can't use the computer because when he turns it on it's asking him for a password to log into windows. He is unable to get in contact with the person he bought the computer from to ask him about the password. Is there anything he can do besides buying a new operating system?If I acquired a used computer, no matter who previously owned it, the first thing I would do with it would be to reinstall the operating system cleanly. You have no idea how the computer has been maintained,what has been installed incorrectly, what is missing, what viruses andspyware there may be, etc. I wouldn't want to live with somebody else's mistakes and problems, possibility of kiddy p0rn, etc., and I wouldn't recommend that anyone else do so either.You're playing with fire if you don't reinstall Windows cleanly.Ken Blake (MS MVP)