Well that’s it. I’m old.
Yesterday I had some trouble with my main computer at work (W7 SP1 wouldn’t install), so while I was troubleshooting this issue I thought I would use my laptop to work. No point in just sitting and watching the progress bar go up on an install, right?
So I logged into my laptop, and sure enough Windows Update tells me that there’s 2,974,997 urgent updates available. I figured I could just hit “Yes, update the whole thing” and go to an early lunch.
Well, long story short, some emails came in and I didn’t immediately leave, so I was there when my laptop rebooted itself and stopped at the login screen. I typed my password and hit enter.
Wrong password.
Well, that happens sometimes, you know me and my enormous sausage fingers, I’ve been known to mistype passwords and other stuff. You should see what this post looked like before I removed all the typos. Well, most of them.
Anyways.
I retype my password, making sure I’m extra careful.
Wrong password.
WTH? Again, this time slower.
I said wrong password, dumbass!
Wow, Windows 7 is really personalized. Not to worry, I do have this amazing password safe where I store all my precious information. A quick peak in there tells me that I was using the right password. Now I’m really confused. Let me try that password again, this time hitting the keys one by one. Enter.
W-R-O-N-G A-G-A-I-N B-O-Z-O-!-!-E-L-E-V-E-N-!
Ok, what exactly can be wrong here. Maybe the keyboard is in a different language. Nope. Maybe I just forgot that I use a slight variation of the password. I do have 10-12 password schema that I repeat over and over again… Let’s try the other possibilities.
Wrong password.
Wrong password.
Wrong password.
Wrong password.
Wrong password.
Wrong password.
Wrong password.
Wrong password.
Then on the 27th try, the system started to “think”, and I thought I had finally figured out–
Haha! Wrong password! Made you thought you had it, huh?
Windows 7 is a dick. Well screw that. As if I need a password to get into a Windows machine. There’s a plethora of password crackers out there, I think I even have one on a USB stick.
Yes, every geek that respects him/herself has a password cracker on hand. Look it up, it’s in the geek book. Page 42.
Oh sh*t, it’s for Windows XP. No worries, I’m sure the Internet can help me find one that’ll suit my needs. Because at this point, it looks like a complete re-install if I can’t figure a way to get in the system.
So while Googling for this, I found the actual Microsoft help page if you ever lose your password. I tried their methods without success (I’m skipping all the details here, because it’s boring!), and ended up downloading a “password resetting tool”, which didn’t work either. Then another.
Damn. I admit that I cursed myself for not being one of those people with passwords on post-it notes under their keyboards, or simply using “12345”, “trustno1” or “password”.
So I re-installed everything from scratch. To be more accurate, I’m re-installing everything from scratch. I wonder why I always forget what a pain in the ass re-installing a whole system, and how long it really takes. Because it’s never the Windows installation that kills you. It’s all the vendor specific drivers and utilities you have to get – and by the way, it’s awesome to not be able to use the network before you install a driver found only on the Internet, I wonder what people with only one computer do in this situation – all the other programs you have to install and setup properly.
And the password recovery emergency CD. I didn’t skip that step this time.