xp password

i gotta problem.
i have a computer at the office running xp home edition. the person is logged on as the only user, administrator.
there is no password rescue disk.
however i don't know what the password is and the person just quit the company.
is there anyway i can bypass this setup so i can have access to all the programs & the files. the person won't tell us what it was. they left under bad circumstances.

i can't afford to wipe out the hard drive. i checked microsoft's web sit and i found nothing on it.

please help, my boss is getting very upset!!!!!

I assume XP is installed using the entire partition, in this case, try taking out the hard drive, install it into another computer with a NTFS OS, boot with the other computer's NTFS OS as an administrator, then you'll have full access to everything.

clarification:
1st of all let me say the this is going on at another branch of the company and i was informed about it 2 days ago.

they are the only person that uses the computer. when he left he turned off the computer and left. i didn't know that no one else knew the password. the computer is currently off but no one can logg into it. the password hint does not help anyone.

there are no other users accounts on the machine because of the nature of what he does.

i happen to have access to just about every os, except me.
i also have boot disks for everything includeing dos.

i'd appreciate any help.

ditto - just pop the drive into another box running 2K and grab what you need. Easy.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

thanks for the help. i have a computer at home that's running 2k, its one i'm selling to my nephew. the machine in question is a dell. i'll give it a shot.

no...the computer is probably locked (like in win 2k...you press ctrl + alt + del then click on lock computer to lock it)....even if you logged off (by hard reboot)...the computer will still lock you out...thats a tuffy...
i personally dont know how to get around it....my guess...install win 98 onto the same HD and boot from win 98...that is if the driver is formatted with FAT32...if not...then i dunno what to say.

<b><font color=red>ATI</font color=red>'s drivers are like a broken faucet, they both keep on leaking...</b>

I have just fixed the same problem for a friend. He only ever logs in as administrator (I think it's an ego thing) there are no other accounts on the system and he changed the password when drunk because one of his other friends had seen him type it. Well guess what, he had no idea what he had changed it to. I have a copy of the software I linked to earlier and it took me 2 mins to change the administrator password from what ever it was to imstupid. I’m surprised some of you don't have a copy of this as it is a wonderful tool; all you really need is the ability to boot from CD.

Although it has a lot of good ideas, beer doesn't know anything about computers!!!

No that would be illegal, just what kind of a guy do you think i am. For more about how i feel about this sort of thing, check your email.

He He

Although it has a lot of good ideas, beer doesn't know anything about computers!!!