Does PCspecialist create a user password for the PC?

[Dayve]

Guys, the frustration is over 9000. I'm ready to throw my PC through the window. Today I managed to pick up a virus - the first virus I've had in about 10 years. It keeps randomly redirecting my browser to various websites whenever I click on anything on the internet, like an article for a news website for example, or a thread on this here forum. I'm pretty sure I got it when I tried to download a popular (and 100% legal) Playstation 2 emulator, but whatever.

So I want to restart my PC in safe mode. No problem. I start my PC in safe mode - the first time I've ever done this since I got this PC over a year ago. It asks for a password. I assume this is the same password it asks for when I start my PC in normal mode, which would be the pin number I set up. So I enter the pin number... incorrect. I type it again slowly to make sure I didn't hit a wrong key. Incorrect.

Oh, I see, it wants my Microsoft password - the one I use to log in to hotmail with. Fair enough.

Incorrect.

Wat?

Incorrect.

Type it again.

Incorrect.

Log in to normal mode, change my microsoft password, am 100% sure I have typed it and written it down correctly (since I use it to log in to hotmail and it works, it is 100% correct).

Incorrect.

It wants some other password. What the hell password does it want? All I want to do is get in to safe mode. Here's the thing - I have a hardback pad next to my PC. In it I write down every password for absolutely everything, and I have been doing this for many years. If I had made a password for this PC I would have written it down.

Is it possible that pcspecialist created one? If not, if anybody knows what god damned password this PC wants to let me boot into safe mode, please for the love of Jesus tell me, because all I want to do is boot this PC - this PC that I own, that I bought with my money which I earned - into safe mode. It's not much to ask at all.

 

[ubuysa]

PCS do not create a password. The copy of Windows they install starts on first boot into the Windows OOBE (out of box experience) dialogue that you get when you install Windows yourself. It's during the OOBE that you setup the password you use to login.

A lot depends on what password you created during the OOBE. You can only create a Microsoft account password at that stage if you are already connected to the Internet. If you're not connected to the Internet during OOBE you'll have to create a local account. If you created a Microsoft account at OOBE then that's the password you need, but if you created a local account at OOBE and have since 'upgraded' to a Microsoft account I'd bet that you need whatever password you used for that local account.

 

[SpyderTracks]

The pin is a shortcut to the password, it’s not a replacement, so you need to enter the password that the pin masks.

If you created the account on your Microsoft account then yes, it’s your Microsoft login, if not then it’s the password you set for the username when you first setup the machine.

 

[Tony1044]

I will be honest if my machine were compromised I wouldn't be putting in passwords. I'd blow it away and reinstall from scratch. My personal opinion is that it's the only way to be sure - especially where you had DNS hijacking. No way over ever knowing what sites are being used in the background.