Win2000 Login

[damontgo]

My mom's business has upgraded their PC's, and my mom won one of the old ones in a raffle. All it I know is that it runs Win2000, and it's a Dell Dimension... x800 i think??? I know it's (something)800. The silly people that raffled these computers didn't bother to give out the passwords to log in to the OS though.. I've tried accessing BIOS, but I haven't done that in forever and I can't figure out to get into BIOS on thius machine. I hold F8 when it boots, but then it just gives me a bunch of boot options, like from disc, or in safe mode, etc. Are there any default passwords top get into the OS and allow us to change things around?? Also, I have an unused copy of WinXP I'd like to give my mom, but I don't know if the machine hardware will support it? B/c I orginally bought the WinXp for my laptop but read that my Laptop is old enough that it might not be able to run WinXP. So anyways, thats my prob. She's trying to call the offices to get the system passwords, but I just want a backup plan in case they give her trouble about it. Thanks

[glc]

First off, we cannot discuss how to bypass password protection in these forums, as we have no way to determine if the request is legitimate or whether someone is trying to hack into someplace where they are not supposed to be. This is covered in the rules.

Most Dells use F2 to get into the bios, and you should be able to determine processor speed, amount of ram, and hard drive size in there. If you can post this data, we can tell you if XP will run okay on it. If you look on the back, you should be able to find the service tag number - it's usually on a barcode sticker (either 5 or 7 alphanumeric characters) and you can use that at support.dell.com to look up the model and specs of the computer - and also get to a driver download section. There is also an express service code - if you find that (I think it's about 10 numeric characters), it can get you to the right place on the support site too.

[damontgo]

thanks glc- and i understand about the password thing, that's certainly reasonable. I'll try the F2 thing when I go back home in a couple of weeks, and ill let you guys know whats the hardware is like. Thanks

[shaticus]

For your password problem why not ask your mom to contact someone in her IT department, chances are they might be kind enough to log in and change the password for her. Then post system specs and do some general system maintenance if it wont support XP.

Just a thought

[damontgo]

yeah she's trying to contact the appropriate IT people, but this is sort of my plan for what do if they can't come through