Passwords and Windows 7

Sep 24, 2008
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Retrieved my old laptop which has Windows 7 on . It has been in my loft for some time and was very cold when I got it out. Now charged up it will not accept my password and silly me did not create disc with Password. Tried all my old passwords with no success. Any ideas guys.
 
Nov 11, 2009
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Retrieved my old laptop which has Windows 7 on . It has been in my loft for some time and was very cold when I got it out. Now charged up it will not accept my password and silly me did not create disc with Password. Tried all my old passwords with no success. Any ideas guys.
Hit several times with very large narrow boat mooring pin and dispose of.FB77203B-445E-44F7-AF7B-9562EC448A06.jpeg
 
Nov 11, 2009
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Was hoping to connect it to my old camcorders which have also come out of loft with plenty of memories on them . Did not want to do that with present pc .
I transferred my old mini dv tapes using the camcorder and the main computer but routed them through to be stored on a separate hard drive do they didn’t clutter the computers main hard drive. From memory 16 gb per one hour of tape.
 
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JTQ

May 7, 2005
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Googling gives some offerings LINK
[ Edit I see this advice has already been given]

As an aside: I have accessed data ( photos) on computers where similar things have happened, simply by running from a USB stick a version of Linux [ Ubuntu], in the trial mode, as opposed replacing Windows.

You could well find you could install a new clean Windows 10 on your old Win 7 machine, if you don't want to first copy any data on it. This is done via a USB stick loaded with an ISO image, you make the stick as described here under "Create a Windows 10 installation Media". LINK

You don't need to have or know your Windows licence code or old password, Microsoft during the installation will go find your licence details without bothering you. Go for a total clean install, rather than upgrade keeping your data etc, as that might still want your old password, but a clean install will not.
You can even get Windows 10 back on a new hard drive in that machine. It will help if you do change out the HHD, for a cheapo small SSD, it will boot faster.
 
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Jun 16, 2020
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Re video copying.

I did mine a couple of years ago. From a couple of old camcorders and a VHS player. I used a video capture kit from these people. (don't read anything into the name, it's just an unfortunate choice I think).

Can't find my model in their range now and their are other companies. But I could not have done it without it.

IMG_0217.JPGIMG_0218.JPG

John
 
Nov 11, 2009
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Re video copying.

I did mine a couple of years ago. From a couple of old camcorders and a VHS player. I used a video capture kit from these people. (don't read anything into the name, it's just an unfortunate choice I think).

Can't find my model in their range now and their are other companies. But I could not have done it without it.

View attachment 1181View attachment 1182

John
Why couldn’t the camcorders output be exported straight into the computer and if required routed and saved to a standalone hard drive. The videos are then available to edit using a software programme on the computer? I did it from minidv tapes run through the camcorder, but it had to be run in real time so it can be a Labour of love
 

JTQ

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Why couldn’t the camcorders output be exported straight into the computer and if required routed and saved to a standalone hard drive. The videos are then available to edit using a software programme on the computer? I did it from minidv tapes run through the camcorder, but it had to be run in real time so it can be a Labour of love

VHS not being a digital format, but analog?
Thus, for VHS & VHS-C you need conversion software .
Mini DV as its name implies is a digital format so can directly be handled.
 
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Sep 24, 2008
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Plenty of things to try, if you do a google search. Here's one website

Thanks for that however it would not complete the sequence, it got to file 32 page where it showed many "32" files then went straight back to log in page
 
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Why couldn’t the camcorders output be exported straight into the computer and if required routed and saved to a standalone hard drive. The videos are then available to edit using a software programme on the computer? I did it from minidv tapes run through the camcorder, but it had to be run in real time so it can be a Labour of love


As JTQ said.

I did it from a VHS player, and a couple of old camcorders, but at least 1 was digital.

I am not sure now as it was a couple of years ago, but I think it helped with the digital format too. I will re-read the instructions.

John
 
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Well I tried all the suggested ways of bring my password back to no avail. I went on UTUBE and just could not follow through as mine kept coming back to log in . However amongst all the stuff got out of the loft was CD disc 's with nearly all the pictures I wanted. The next headache I got is what photos that are in albums do I dispose of or put on the pc/ Think It will take until April.
 
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Well I tried all the suggested ways of bring my password back to no avail. I went on UTUBE and just could not follow through as mine kept coming back to log in . However amongst all the stuff got out of the loft was CD disc 's with nearly all the pictures I wanted. The next headache I got is what photos that are in albums do I dispose of or put on the pc/ Think It will take until April.
Only you can decide on that one. I tend to keep albums intact as my “ heirs” can quickly look at them and decide if they want to keep them, or remove specific photos to retain. On the computer I have those photographs of holidays, events etc all in separate titled folders. But to keep storage size down I’m quite hard on the photos I retain. Do I really need. 50 shot burst of a tigers head?
Looking back over our years of photos two or three 36 shot films would do a two week holiday abroad. As digital took over but SD was limited 200-300 did a two week holiday. Now it can be that many per day.

I’ve had to be really hard on my late fathers collection. All his albums I’ve kept as they are family history here and for nearly five years in India during WW2. But his massive number of slides from holidays have mainly gone to recycling. There’s only so many Mediterranean fishing ports you can take 😂
 

JTQ

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If you have anything you need stored on the computer with the forgotten password, don't overlook you most probably can access these simply by running a Linux OS on it via a USB memory stick, as I pointed out earlier.
I have found even where Windows has corruptions so it will not boot, I have access the owner's, "Documents, Pictures" etc simply by starting their computer with Linux, from a memory stick. I have had to set the BIOS to boot from a USB before its HHD. Boot in "try it out mode", not install.

This should help LINK
 
Nov 6, 2005
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If you have anything you need stored on the computer with the forgotten password, don't overlook you most probably can access these simply by running a Linux OS on it via a USB memory stick, as I pointed out earlier.
I have found even where Windows has corruptions so it will not boot, I have access the owner's, "Documents, Pictures" etc simply by starting their computer with Linux, from a memory stick. I have had to set the BIOS to boot from a USB before its HHD. Boot in "try it out mode", not install.

This should help LINK

When my previous laptop had a hard drive failure, my local computer shop couldn't get anything out of it - but a neighbour's geek brother took the hard drive out and was able to recover my files with a couple of Linux programs on his own PC.
 
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The laptop i have i always written my passwords down in order of A to Z but as back up i have this on my laptop Last Pass Password Manager i find it brilliant it stores them for me .
 
Oct 8, 2006
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If you need to recover files from your hard disc there is an easier way - provided you have access to another machine.

You need to download a copy of a live CD version of Linux. I use Knoppix which is very user friendly. Once downloaded burn the software to a CD and start your machine from it. When it is up and running mount the hard drive in the same machine and you will be able to see the full file structure including the pictures to which you need access. You can then select the pictures you need to export and run a CD burning prog that is part of the live CD software to write the pictures to the CD.

It is amazingly quick compared with Windoze. I had to recover some doc files for my daughter when she was at university - about 40Mb as I recall. From pressing the start button to the disc drive popping open was 14 seconds!!!

There is plenty of on-line help to show you how to do the above but if you have any issues feel free to PM me.
 

JTQ

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The laptop i have i always written my passwords down in order of A to Z but as back up i have this on my laptop Last Pass Password Manager i find it brilliant it stores them for me .

Me, I just keep a log book of basic passwords of that type, computer repairs and serial numbers ; it's the engineers training still there. More sensitive stuff though is handled quite differently and encrypted.
 
Sep 24, 2008
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Only you can decide on that one. I tend to keep albums intact as my “ heirs” can quickly look at them and decide if they want to keep them, or remove specific photos to retain. On the computer I have those photographs of holidays, events etc all in separate titled folders. But to keep storage size down I’m quite hard on the photos I retain. Do I really need. 50 shot burst of a tigers head?
Looking back over our years of photos two or three 36 shot films would do late 1800a two week holiday abroad. As digital took over but SD was limited 200-300 did a two week holiday. Now it can be that many per day.

I’ve had to be really hard on my late fathers collection. All his albums I’ve kept as they are family history here and for nearly five years in India during WW2. But his massive number of slides from holidays have mainly gone to recycling. There’s only so many Mediterranean fishing ports you can take 😂
I agree to what you have said especially about the older generation. I have my fathers football winners photo and medal 1928 ,his parents and same with my mother, one going back late 1800.
 
Sep 24, 2008
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Googling gives some offerings LINK
[ Edit I see this advice has already been given]

As an aside: I have accessed data ( photos) on computers where similar things have happened, simply by running from a USB stick a version of Linux [ Ubuntu], in the trial mode, as opposed replacing Windows.

You could well find you could install a new clean Windows 10 on your old Win 7 machine, if you don't want to first copy any data on it. This is done via a USB stick loaded with an ISO image, you make the stick as described here under "Create a Windows 10 installation Media". LINK

You don't need to have or know your Windows licence code or old password, Microsoft during the installation will go find your licence details without bothering you. Go for a total clean install, rather than upgrade keeping your data etc, as that might still want your old password, but a clean install will not.
You can even get Windows 10 back on a new hard drive in that machine. It will help if you do change out the HHD, for a cheapo small SSD, it will boot faster.
Regarding going to Windows 10 , this one is 10 but as said the laptop is 7. Some time ago I took it to our local pc man who when I asked about doing that he replied I am wasting my money.
 
Sep 24, 2008
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Done a bit of good today with those photos. Found one of my niece who lives on her own and is disabled. It was my sister holding her as a baby 62 years ago. She was over the moon so managed to sort out eighteen photos of her and my sister from baby to 20 years old. Would probably have been more but my sister died early and we moved far away as well.
 

JTQ

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Regarding going to Windows 10 , this one is 10 but as said the laptop is 7. Some time ago I took it to our local pc man who when I asked about doing that he replied I am wasting my money.

Well, he is welcome to his opinion and we don't know how much he would charge you, so we can't form an opinion on the value. We also don't know when this was, pre MS announcing they were pulling support finally for Win 7, or post that announcement?
Now running Win 7 on the internet, with MS support for that OS finally pulled would be wide open for hacking. If using a Win 7 machine accessing the internet, can you afford not to be protected?
The change from Win 7 to the very latest Win 10, is actually free, any costs would have been his charges.
MS only officially offered a free upgrade for a period, now well expired.
BUT, the reality is that using the link I gave, a free update was still working, when not too long ago I used it. I suspect it still will be for those who try.
What was, probably is, on offer, is any computer running a legitimately licensed OS, from Win 7 upwards, can be legitimately and for free, be upgraded to the latest version of Win 10.
I suspect it is for people who screw up their copy or replace their HHD, they can get their OS back.
As I said, I have quite recently upgraded a Win 7 machine to Win 10.
All the licence info MS wants to accept you have a right to Win 10, is imbedded in your motherboard. If they ask you for it and you can't give it, then it simply goes and finds it for itself.
Now the question is, do you want Win 10, and can a Win 7 machine run it.
The machine most likely can run Win 10, in some ways it runs easier. If you want to go on the internet you really should "want" Win 10 for security reasons.

Don't linger too long, Win 10 is also on its way out, May ????
Given its upgrade options after then, who knows what offers will be about, though it seems Win 10 to the next version will be. But Win 7 right to the new OS, we can only speculate about???
Sorry for any typos spelling etc.
 
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Sep 26, 2018
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Don't linger too long, Win 10 is also on its way out, May ????
Given its upgrade options after then, who knows what offers will be about, though it seems Win 10 to the next version will be. But Win 7 right to the new OS, we can only speculate about???
Sorry for any typos spelling etc.
Interesting as I'm on Windows Insider Preview and am currently using the dev version for release in Spring 2022....

This link explains... Windows 10 Home and Pro - Microsoft Lifecycle | Microsoft Docs
 
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Well, he is welcome to his opinion and we don't know how much he would charge you, so we can't form an opinion on the value. We also don't know when this was, pre MS announcing they were pulling support finally for Win 7, or post that announcement?
Now running Win 7 on the internet, with MS support for that OS finally pulled would be wide open for hacking. If using a Win 7 machine accessing the internet, can you afford not to be protected?
The change from Win 7 to the very latest Win 10, is actually free, any costs would have been his charges.
MS only officially offered a free upgrade for a period, now well expired.
BUT, the reality is that using the link I gave, a free update was still working, when not too long ago I used it. I suspect it still will be for those who try.
What was, probably is, on offer, is any computer running a legitimately licensed OS, from Win 7 upwards, can be legitimately and for free, be upgraded to the latest version of Win 10.
I suspect it is for people who screw up their copy or replace their HHD, they can get their OS back.
As I said, I have quite recently upgraded a Win 7 machine to Win 10.
All the licence info MS wants to accept you have a right to Win 10, is imbedded in your motherboard. If they ask you for it and you can't give it, then it simply goes and finds it for itself.
Now the question is, do you want Win 10, and can a Win 7 machine run it.
The machine most likely can run Win 10, in some ways it runs easier. If you want to go on the internet you really should "want" Win 10 for security reasons.

Don't linger too long, Win 10 is also on its way out, May ????
Given its upgrade options after then, who knows what offers will be about, though it seems Win 10 to the next version will be. But Win 7 right to the new OS, we can only speculate about???
Sorry for any typos spelling etc.
[/Thank you for a very comprehensive reply. The PC guy was about early 2020. I followed instructions to log in but each time after leaving view problems details it went straight to a page filled with systems 32, then could not do anything more as it then goes back to log in page .If it would respond going to 10 would be good.
 

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