Local user and groups method

If you are like me, and like the Windows 2000 way of doing things, this section is for you. Windows XP was based off of code from Windows 2000. You could think of Windows XP as a revised version of Windows 2000. Although thousands of improvements have been made, some of the basic elements of Windows 2000 are still in place. However, they are not always easy to find, but they are still available if you know where they are. I have dug through the system files and have found the old MMC (Microsoft Management Console) applet that was used to manage local usernames and accounts. To start the old MMC applet and remove passwords, follow these steps:

The old Windows 2000 style user manager can only be found on computers running Windows XP Professional.

1. Click the Start Menu and select Run. Then type lusrmgr.msc in the text box and
click OK.

2. This will start up the Local Users and Groups MMC applet. Click the Users folder to expand it to reveal the Users setup on your computer.

3. Next, right-click the name of the account you want to change and select Set Password.

4. A new window will pop up that informs you that you may lose some of the user's data if you change their password. According to the Microsoft Help file, you will only lose any files and e-mail that the user encrypted and any saved passwords for Web pages saved in Internet Explorer. Most personal use users never need to worry about this limitation, because they would not be encrypting anything. Although they might lose some saved passwords, unless they wrote them down somewhere, the loss would just be a minor inconvenience. If you have a user who is so concerned about his privacy that he encrypted his files, you should think twice about removing his password. Once you have decided if you still want to proceed, click the Proceed button and you will be shown the Set Password For Username window.

5. Leave both of the password boxes blank and click OK. That's it. You are now
finished.

If you ever need to set a password again with this method, repeat the previous steps and type the password in the text boxes instead of leaving them blank.