If you find yourself locked out of your Windows XP because you forgot or lost login password, below are some things you can do.
- First, do you have the administrator password? Login as an admin and change the password of your user ID. (Obvious Adams?)
- NEW: If you are an Administrator user, and are logged into Windows right now because your PC is setup to log you in automatically, but have forgotten your password in fact, and would now like to change it — well, Windows requires you to know the old one. However, there is a brute force way to change your Administrator password. Open a Command prompt (START — > RUN — > then type “cmd” without the double quotes) and then type the following command: net user username newpassword
Remember, if the username has spaces in it, then enclose it in double quotes, e.g.,
net user “Samuel Jackson” pulpypass
This would change Samuel Jackson’s password to pulpypass provided Samuel Jackson was an Administrator user.
- Don’t have admin access? Well, you can get it if you wish by downloading a cool tool from Password Seeker to recover Windows password if you have forgotten it.
- Or, you could just download this program to reset Windows XP / 2000 / NT security if the Administrator password, secure boot password, or the key disk is lost.
- Windows Password Recovery Tool 3.0 can replace the administrator password of a Windows XP, Windows NT or Windows 2000 system by rebooting the computer with a special set of boot disks or CD-ROM (or usb flash drive). This is useful if you forgot the administrator password and cannot access the Windows XP/2000/NT system.
- SmartDoctor has put together an Password Recovery Bundle, which can recover many types password included Windows systems.
Let me know how it goes.
Unlock IBM / Lenovo ThinkPad 
Note: With some computers, if you press and hold a key as the computer is booting you will get a stuck key message. If this occurs, instead of pressing and holding the "F8 key", tap the "F8 key" continuously until you get the startup menu. Step 2. Use your arrow keys to move to "Safe Mode with Command Prompt" and press your Enter key. Step 3. Select the operating system to start. 
Step 4. Windows XP Safe Mode is loading.
Step 5. A logon screen displays all OS user names, there are 2 accounts in this example: Administrator, Mike. Here we assume that you want to recover the "Mike" account password. Enter password for your administrator account to get in safe mode, the default password is blank if you never set a password for administrator before. It is similar with the normal logon screen, but normal logon screen will only list Mike. Screenshots: Safe Mode logon screen VS normal logon screen 
Step 6. After entering safe mode, you can see the Windows command prompt. Enter "net user" and press Enter to list all the user names in your Windows XP. Enter "net user Mike 123456789" and press Enter. It means that you want to reset "Mike" account password to "123456789". When it takes effect, you can login the "Mike" account with the new password of "123456789". 
Step 7. Enter "shutdown -r" and press Enter, the System will be restart, then you can access Mike account in normal logon mode. 
2. After that you only need to enter the simple command below to activate it. net user administrator /active:yes 
3. You should see a message that the command completed successfully. Log out, and you'll now see the Administrator account as a choice. 
You'll note that there's no password for this account, so if you want to leave it enabled you should change the password. 
2. After the Local Security Policy pops up, navigate to Local Policies-> Security Options where you can see an entry that reads Accounts: Administrator account. Double click the entry to enable it. 
The administrator account will now be disabled, and shouldn't show up on the login screen anymore. 
Step2: Select the Windows XP as the operating system and when safe mode will be loaded, you will get the welcome screen. Now click on the administrator to log on as administrator. 
Step3: Now click on the start button on the extreme left of the computer screen and click run. Now in the run dialog box, you have to type "control userpasswords". Now press enter, you will see a new window pick an account to change, there you just click on the administrator account. 
Step4: Now you will see list of options, just select change my passwords from the options given. You will get two dialogue boxes as current and new password, fill both of the fields. Now you have to click ok to finish the process. Now to see the changes made, reboot the computer and after selecting safe mode; you will ask to enter the passwords. 
We recommend you to make a note of the passwords as well as use some other medium to remember the passwords. Because whenever you will need to log on to safe mode, you need to enter the password. We also recommend you to change the passwords at least once in a month to avoid any kind of security breaches. It is also essential to update the Windows once in a month to avoid internet worms. You can also 
