help

[vanillacoke]

Here's my situation, a local business in my neighborhood was giving away some of its old pcs. I picked one up but noticed that the previous user had password protected the pc which was running windows 2000. I don't know what to do, should I try some of my reinstall disks for my other pcs or try to install Linux alongside windows?

[talkinghand]

well you could run along and pick up a little tool called SAMinside and crack the passwords. But i don't think i can get into that. but as a side note it DOES work i have done it. Unless you need access to those accounts i would just reformat with your disks

/edit
the reformatting is a much better option IMO because you won't have any of their crap to deal with and you will have a nice fresh copy of you OS

[Whistler]

its easier to just change the password than to find it out. That is setting the password to nothing isnt too hard but finding it out you need to like break encription and stuff

[vanillacoke]

I guess reformatting is a good idea but I'm not sure whether the reinstall disk for my dell computer will work with this new computer.
And another thing, will SAMinside work even though I can't log into the computer.

[Whistler]

google it. I think you need some form of other os to get saminside working