this post was submitted on
222 points (60% like it)
631 up votes 409 down votes
shortlink:

pics

subscribe2,352,163 readers

6,707 users here now

Looking for an image subreddit with minimal rules? Check out /r/images

A place to share interesting photographs and pictures. Feel free to post your own, but please read the rules first (see below), and note that we are not a catch-all for general images (of screenshots, comics, etc.)

Spoiler code

Please mark spoilers like this:
[text here](/spoiler)

Hover over to read.

Rules

  1. No screenshots, or pictures with added or superimposed text. This includes image macros, comics, info-graphics and most diagrams. Text (e.g. a URL) serving to credit the original author is exempt.

  2. No gore or porn. NSFW content must be tagged.

  3. No personal information. This includes anything hosted on Facebook's servers, as they can be traced to the original account holder. Stalking & harassment will not be tolerated.

  4. No solicitation of votes (including "cake day" posts), posts with their sole purpose being to communicate with another redditor, or [FIXED] posts. DAE posts go in /r/DoesAnybodyElse. "Fixed" posts should be added as a comment to the original image.

  5. Submissions must link directly to a specific image file or to an image hosting website with minimal ads. We do not allow blog hosting of images ("blogspam"), but links to albums on image hosting websites are okay. URL shorteners are prohibited.

  • If your submission appears to be filtered but definitely meets the above rules, please send us a message with a link to the comments section of your post (not a direct link to the image). Don't delete it as that just makes the filter hate you!

  • If you come across any rule violations, please report the submission or message the mods and one of us will remove it!

Please also try to come up with original post titles. Submissions that use certain clichés/memes will be automatically tagged with a warning.

Links

If your post doesn't meet the above rules, consider submitting it on one of these other subreddits:

Comics  
/r/comics /r/webcomics
/r/vertical /r/f7u12
/r/ragenovels /r/AdviceAtheists
Image macros Screenshots/text
/r/lolcats /r/screenshots
/r/AdviceAnimals /r/desktops
/r/Demotivational /r/facepalm (Facebook)
/r/reactiongifs /r/DesktopDetective
Wallpaper Animals
/r/wallpaper /r/aww
/r/wallpapers /r/cats
The SFWPorn Network /r/TrollingAnimals
  /r/deadpets
  /r/birdpics
  /r/foxes
Photography Un-moderated pics
/r/photography /r/AnythingGoesPics
/r/photocritique /r/images
/r/HDR
/r/windowshots
/r/PictureChallenge
Misc New reddits
/r/misc /r/britpics
/r/gifs Imaginary Network
/r/dataisbeautiful /r/thennnow
/r/picrequests /r/SpecArt
/r/LookWhoIMet
  /r/timelinecovers
  /r/MemesIRL
  /r/OldSchoolCool
  /r/photoshopbattles

Also check out http://irc.reddit.com

a community for
to anything interesting: news article, blog entry, video, picture...
message the moderators

MODERATORS

reddit is a source for what's new and popular online. vote on links that you like or dislike and help decide what's popular, or submit your own! learn more ›

221
222

Forgot your Windows 98 password? No problem. (i.imgur.com)

submitted ago by doug3465

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on
all 81 comments
sorted by:
best
best
top
new
hot
controversial
old

[–]long-n-low 111 points112 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

You are aware that the ESC key bypassed that login screen in 98... it was for network authentication only, not local security.

[–]VIDGuide 10 points11 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

The gif clearly shows pressing cancel in the first frames and being rejected. I'm pretty sure on a domain you could remove the ability to log in without a network credential..

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Win 98 wasn't ever considered a secure computing platform. The same with Win 95. When Win 95 was in beta, a lot of people pointed out 'flaws' like this in various computing industry magazines.

I'm really not sure why this submitter thinks this is relevant thirteen years after Win 98 was released and Microsoft ended support for Windows 98 five years ago.

This would be interesting if it was demonstrated on Windows NT workstation, but only in the historical curiosity of "Oh really? Well it's pretty amazing we never discovered that... but it's rather pointless now anyhow."

[–]questionablemoose 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I'm really not sure why this submitter thinks this is relevant thirteen years after Win 98 was released...

Relevant to what? It's just funny.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

What's funny about it? It's not a secure OS. Microsoft's literature at the time didn't push it as such, for that they recommended Win NT Workstation.

[–]questionablemoose 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I think you're taking this way too seriously. The post was just for amusement. It's not like OP thought he was posting some revolutionary exploit.

Relax, have some fun.

[–]Fraktul 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Ahhh.... brings back memories from high school. :) The guys running the computer lab at my school used some program (Security Administrator, I think) to prevent anonymous local access by pressing the ESC key, but once you log in (or use a bootdisk) you can always delete any .pwl file for any user, log off, and log back in to that account and it will ask you to enter a new password. It didn't work for Win98SE (second edition) though.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Because it's been posted and reposted and it's not even that significant of a find.

Shit like this is turning reddit to a pit.

[–]questionablemoose 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I haven't seen it in awhile. If it's that bad, Reddit source is available. You can set up your own site and quality control the shit out of it. Or you can ignore reposts and enjoy the new content when it comes in. :p

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

613 upvotes - apparently some people enjoyed seeing it.

[–][deleted] ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

[deleted]

[–]hieronymous-cowherd -5 points-4 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Me three!

[–]Volsunga 15 points16 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Nobody's going to believe me when i say this, but I figured this out myself in Second Grade. Parents weren't home for hours and nothing was going to stand between me and my Math Blasters no matter how long it took!

[–]machzel08 23 points24 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

you "hacked" your computer to play Math Blasters? Nerd.

[–]I_RAPE_RATS 13 points14 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

nothing was going to stand between me and my porn

FTFY

[–][deleted] ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

[deleted]

[–]AAAAAAAHHH 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

No, he was right the first time.

[–]yumenohikari 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Odds are that you could have just hit the cancel button. Only weirdo nerds run domain controllers at home.

How do I know, you ask? Let's just say it takes one to know one.

[–]machpe 11 points12 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

My grandmother still uses Windows 98.

I'm not kidding.

[–]Zebra2 5 points6 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

That's nothing, at my lab we still use windows 3.1. Yeah, send your chemical synthesis in for some liquid chromatography-mass spec we do it on windows 3.1.

[–]Damaband41 3 points4 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Well that makes a bit more sense. Generally in labs and things like that they only upgrade systems when they NEED to do something else. If that system does everything they need it for, they're perfectly happy reading the numbers and graphs off that POS old-ass screen.

[–]azorota 2 points3 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I can testify that. I run a $80,000 scanning tunneling microscope on a win 98 OS!!

[–]level3elf 4 points5 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

wow, and I thought the labs I worked were the only ones that sucked. We used to run a confocal laser scanning microscope on a 3.1 machine.

[–]azorota 2 points3 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

No, trust me, I love it. It works amazingly well. It never gets stuck, no blue screen of death, no virus issues, it serves the purpose of running the software. I have a rule - "If shit ain't broke, don't fix it".

[–]gameraobscura 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

i irradiated an awful lot of blood in an irradiator purchased in 2009 running windows 3.1. never crashed once.

[–]alok99 2 points3 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

But why?!

[–]TheCannon 43 points44 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I really could have used this 13 years ago.

[–]ProximaC 6 points7 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Thank god for reddit providing relevant, timely information in this crazy-fast digital age we live in!

Tune in tomorrow for a link on how to clean your 8-track player!

[–]andytagonist 2 points3 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

ESC

[–]jedrekk 8 points9 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Isn't this Windows NT? In Windows 98 you just hit cancel and it would let you get in.

[–]ZeroRecursion 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Yeah, this is NT. I used to support it back in the day.

Damn, I'm old.

[–]yumenohikari 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Wouldn't hitting cancel just drop you back to the "Press Ctrl+Alt+Del" prompt, then?

[–]pseudolobster 18 points19 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Oh hi Doug, I promised I wouldn't bug you about reposts anymore, so I'm posting this link that has a lot of other cool tricks in it for bypassing windows login screens, totally just as another source of cool info, including this trick and this one.

[–]brianbrianbrian 7 points8 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

He did nawt repost this, he did naaawt.

Oh, hi pseudolobster.

[–]tysoasn 2 points3 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I wish I could give you a million upvotes for your Wiseau reference

[–]koew -2 points-1 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

You could just downvote and hide. It's just karma. The karma shop has been closed since their first customer went bananas.

[–]boraxus 3 points4 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I worked for HP Pavilion when some Win 98 were still In Warranty.

press Esc, then search for *.pwl, delete all, restart, put in whatever new password you want next time you log in. If there is some sort of security, use F8 and go to DOS first, dir *.pwl /s (i think /s worked, its been a while)

http://www.governmentsecurity.org/articles/breaking-windows-98-passwords.html

[–]thetoastmonster 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

This is the only response that mentions deleting the PWL files? For shame.

[–]StalinsLastStand 5 points6 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

What if we aren't in the nineties?

[–]doug3465[S] 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

just something cool

[–]StalinsLastStand 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

All right, I'll bite. It was awesome.

[–]roberrt777 -1 points0 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Like some sorta last stand?

[–]donri 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

People still use XP. Most setups have a hidden administrator account with no password. Ctrl+Alt+Delete on welcome screen to get a login prompt.

[–]Radico87 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I see you're going for quantity rather than quality

[–]ic3r 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

http://epiclogon.ytmnd.com/

Seriously, this is the original place we all saw this...

[–]brianbrianbrian 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Love the music.

[–]with_sarcasm 2 points3 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Thank you very much! Many will find this very useful...

[–]thetoastmonster 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Ten years ago.

[–]kleevr 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Ah the golden age of "hacking" in middle school. I also had CD with an autorun launcher for Netscape; firewall-proxy bypassed.

[–]Thoughtist 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Not sure, if there's such a trick for XP, but there are some programs, that let you reset the password, if you use the boot CD. A suite called ERD Commander helped me out greatly, when I was working in IT.

[–]thetoastmonster 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Ophcrack and NTPasswd.

[–]canistel 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Yup, NTPasswd on a usb stick has saved me a number of times...

[–]4InchesOfury 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

My grandma still uses windows Me. Would this work on that?

[–]Going_in_your_Eye 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Who uses Windows 98 anymore?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

In XP, start in safe mode, pick administrator. It's a hidden account most people don't even know exists and it has no password.

[–]mediapathic 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I used to do all kinds of stuff like this when I would install a broken LiteStep theme that wouldn't allow me to get to explorer anymore.

[–]monstercablessuck 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

If only you could show me a way to get another 16k of extended memory on my DOS machine so I can see the joystick move in Wing Commander! (naw, just kidding. I can totally do this)

[–]CommentOnYourFuture 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Most of you will never realize that Windows is still not a true multiuser operating system. Some of you, however, will unfortunately re-post this well known thing over, and over and over.

[–]VinegarStrokes 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I can finally get into my computer after 13 LONG years! THANKS!

[–]Fraktul 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Another fun thing to do with Win98 is to create a bunch of files (.txt, .doc, .whatever) and give them names like "secret", "PWDList", "hidden", etc. (has to be 8 characters or less) then open a command shell and rename them adding the "whitespace" character at the end. (ALT+255). When someone tries to open that file or directory in Windows Explorer, it gives the error message, "This folder does not exist". It can't be deleted from Windows Explorer either. :P good times... lol

[–]jasonjulias 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I have Mac OS X 10.6 and lost my password a couple of weeks ago. I have no startup disc or anything so I kinda freaked. I spent a few hours scouring Google for a solution and came across one guide. All I had to do was reboot into a prompt screen, type about 3 short lines, and voila! It started up as if I was installing a new OS and had me create a NEW admin account then logged me in. From there I could change the password of my locked out admin account. I switched users and no files were harmed. It took about 10 minutes in total. Pretty scary how easy that was.

[–]corp 2 points3 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Similar thing happened to me with a virtual installation of Ubuntu. It was probably the easiest thing I've done regarding Linux.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Every sane OS let's you change your password if you have physical access to the machine.

[–]anagramloop 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

just a sec <frantically checks VMWare manual>

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

  1. Boot into single user mode (press Command-S at power on)
  2. Type fsck -fy
  3. Type mount -uw /
  4. Type launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
  5. Type dscl . -passwd /Users/username password, replacing username with the targeted user and password with the desired password.

6.Reboot

[–]jasonjulias 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

That may work, this is what I did:

  1. Reboot

  2. Hold apple key + s key down after you hear the chime. (command + s on newer Macs)

  3. When you get text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account (hitting return after each line):

    mount -uw /

    rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

    shutdown -h now

  4. Go through setup and create new admin account.

[–]mrbees 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Do you mean shutdown -hP now?

[–]sbrocket 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Anyone that's technically capable enough to do that could figure out other methods to access your completely unencrypted data, like simply mounting the disk with another computer. You wouldn't even need another Mac now that Windows 7 has HFS+ filesystem support.

If you're concerned, you can secure Single User Mode with an Open Firmware (for really old Macs) or EFI password, but that still leaves your data just as open. Unfortunately there isn't a first-party whole disk encryption option yet, though you can use FileVault to encrypt your user account and get most if not all of your important data. Whole disk encryption is coming in 10.7 Lion. You could also use individual encrypted disk images for important data (tax info, porn, etc).

[–]funknjam 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Repost. Sigh.

[–]m4ngo -1 points0 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Are we being trolled right now? I seriously cannot tell if we're being trolled right now.

[–]PhilxBefore -1 points0 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Or you know, just hit the 'Cancel' button since you're not attached to a domain.

[–]ic3r 4 points5 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Actualy, in this gif, you see the user hit cancel to prove that they are in fact on a domain. You should probably watch again...

[–]PhilxBefore -1 points0 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Nonsense!

[–]boober_noober 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Upvoted for a beautiful rejection of facts.

[–]m8urn -1 points0 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Voted up just for having it installed still.

[–]benmartini -1 points0 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I hope to god no one still uses win98, Sad fact is that I bet so many do. ಥ_ಥ

[–]Damaband41 -1 points0 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Yeah. What hopeless people? Get out your pitchfork and torches and we'll find every last one of them.

[–]thetoastmonster 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I have a client who still runs Windows 98 on his Pentium II 400 Mhz computer, with Firefox 2. Yes, that's right, it goes on the internet.

It's not running any antivirus software.

And, actually, it's never been infected with anything. Nobody writes malware to exploit '98 any more.

[–]benmartini 0 points1 point ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

They could at least upgrade to Me by now

[–]Damaband41 1 point2 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

I tell that to chicks all the time

[–]enigma408 -1 points0 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

YTMND has already been though this.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy. © 2012 reddit inc. All rights reserved.

REDDIT and the ALIEN Logo are registered trademarks of reddit inc.

π Rendered by PID 25857 on app-113 running 2c0449c.