Where does XP store passwords?

[TruckStuff]

Where does Windows XP keep track of passwords that it stores for later use? I'm having a password issue on a network share and XP isn't prompting me for the p/w so I'd like to find out what it is trying to use. TIA

[FlyingPenguin]

Is this WinXP Pro? If so, and the password's not valid, it should prompt you for a new password. If it's XP Home it never stores the pasword.

There is also a little bug in XP I discovered recently. If you open a mapped network share and the stored password is no longer valid, it may not prompt you for a password (or may prompt you but will not offer to save the new one you type in) - it just gives you an error that the shared resource is not accessible to you. To fix that, browse the shared path using My Network places instead of the mapped drive. You will then get a password prompt and an option to save it. Once you save the new one from there, it should work via the mapped drive letter as well.

There are files that store the passwords in all NT OSes but you can't see them in the file - they're encrypted. You can however delete the file which wipes all your passwords (network and user logon).

I have this info in my knowledgebase:

If your disk is formatted as FAT32, go in to it via a DOS boot disk and delete the SAM files, which'll wipe the passwords for that machine.

If it's formatted NTFS you can do the same from the Recovery console (Boot from the XP CD and select Repair from the Recovery Console) or by popping your drive into another WinXP computer as a slave and booting from a different drive, then deleting the files from Windows.

All in all, it revolves around deleting the Security Account Manager files

SAM files to delete:

SAM (no extension) in X:\WINNT\system32\config
SAM.LOG in X:\WINNT\system32\config
SAM (no extension) in X:\WINNT\repair

When you boot up, all user and admin passwords will be blank, so just go an recreate em.
One note, in X:\WINNT\system32\config it MAY be called SAM.EXE, as windows will add the extension, execute it, and then rename it back to SAM with no extension. So if SAM.EXE exists, delete it as well. Usually though (And I believe it's the case with WinXP) it keeps SAM without an extension.

Hope this helps...