Forgotten Password

There is plenty of software available for that purpose, as a quick Google search shows. I've never personally tried any, but I would try some of it before reinstalling, let us know what worked.

he forgot the password to the ONLY account
cant login to winxp... unless maybe in safe mode? can you do that?

D/L a password recovery program and boot it from floppy/cd/usb stick.

If you can't manage that then install another drive...mount OS and then copy all your files from the first drive then reformat it.

Actually here is what you can do. Boot into safe mode and log in as Administrator. Then go to Control Panel and then User accounts and you should be able to delete the password there. If not, go to run and type "control userpasswords2" without the quotes and use the password reset to set a new one and then log in and change it back to whatever u want or remove the password.

Nope, it will still ask for the password. Check this link for some software suggestions that should work. You need to make a floppy disk on a working PC and use it on the one that is password protected. From the reading I did you're not going to get the password without using software.

WinXP allways has at least 2 accounts as it automatically creates a Administrator account during installation. The second account is the one the user is asked to make as the last thing before the installation has finished.

For getting access to the Administrator account hold Ctrl+Alt and press Del twice on the screen where your username is shown and you are asked for the password to your account. On the new login screen write Administrator instead of the username.

Your friend can try retrieve the password here:

http://www.loginrecovery.com/

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Jack the ripper or something
looks good and easy

hopefully he hasnt reformatted yet,.,

Turns out the reason he 'forgot' the password was because the laptop is stolen.

I aint gonna help him with that

Forgot your windows password http://www.anypasswordrecovery.com/ ?This windows password recovery tool could help you bypass windows password,and you also can burned it into a cd as reset dick.

After the computer POST, press F8, select Safe Mode, select the OS to run, login as Administrator, click Yes on the "Computer is currently running in 'Safe Mode'." message, go to Start > Run, type in Controls userpasswords, click on his user name, go to Change password, or Delete password, follow the onscreen instructions, exit the User Account Control program, reboot, and login from the normal mode using his account. Also, I would recommend typing in the user password via Notepad, WordPad, MS Word, etc, save it, and print it*.

* Sometimes Safe Mode won't allow you to print a document due to driver restrictions.

Well, if the laptop is stolen, he might as well considered all his files gone. However, if he does have the laptop, giangsta's advise is what I do all the time. The average XP user never sets a password for Administrator. I've done it so many times, even on family's computers.