Post reply

Windows 2003 server administrator password forgot

  • July 30, 2004 at 4:55 am

    #108804

     

    Is it possible to find out the password for windows administrator account, knowing the 'sa' paswoord on the Sql server installed on that server?

    On the SQl server, the autentification mode is 'mixed mode';

    And I can log on to the server with a power user account;

    Thanks!

     

  • July 30, 2004 at 6:01 am

    #516964

    there is little linux utility disk that you can download from the internet.

    boot from the disk and it will discover your local admin passwords and accounts from windows machines....

    heh heh heh - you should be able to locate it somewhere on the web .

    MVDBA

  • July 30, 2004 at 6:13 am

    #516967

    I know about that, but my question was:"knowing the 'sa' password, can i find the administrator password of the system?"

    I've heard from someone that it's possible;

  • July 30, 2004 at 6:21 am

    #516972

    i can't see how, perhaps it may allow you to change it. depends on how your services are set up

    if they are set up to run under local admin or a domain admin account then there are ways to execute jobs using XP_CMDSHELL under the contect of the SQL service account.

    this would allow you to script up Windows password changes.

    or something along those lines -

    MVDBA

  • August 1, 2004 at 9:29 pm

    #517160

    No. just by knowing the sa password you can't directly get the password for the administrator account. You'd need to brute force the password using some sort of tool. However, if the SQL Server is running under the System account or an account that is in the local administrators group (operating system level), you can reset the password, also as previously mentioned. If you need to recover the administrator password for some reason, there are numerous tools that can do so.

    K. Brian Kelley
    @kbriankelley

  • August 2, 2004 at 10:48 am

    #517308

    Short answer: No. You cannot use SQL Server & the SA account to retrieve the Windows 2003 Server Administrator account password.

    You can, however, overwrite or reset the Administrator with a special utility created by Peter Nordahl.

    See the following link and information about creating and using the utility:

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

    Good Luck. - Michael

  • August 2, 2004 at 12:02 pm

    #517321

    You can add a computer management snap-in to Enterprise Manager to manage a remote computer. Using computer management, a domain administrator can set the password for any local user on the remote computer.

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply