You know, kids and computers can go well together...as long as it isn't on a mission-critical system, like one with all your business data, photos, and programs (especially if you don't keep full, complete backups). Today I got a call from a lady that works at my church - she had allowed her 4-year-old nephew to use her computer, apparently without supervision. I don't know how long it took him, but he had figured out how to change the lady's login name and password, effectively making her account inaccessible to anyone but the nephew. This kid has computer hacker written all over him. :)
Lots of things were fortunate about how all this turned out. For one, although the lady has her account password-protected (now password-protected by the nephew), the computer's built-in Administrator account was not password-protected, a possibility I had been counting on (lest I have to use the password reset utility). Over the phone, I had the lady reboot her computer into Safe Mode, which brings up the option to log in as the Administrator, which had no password. This allowed her to go to the Control Panel, then to the Users and Groups and change her account name and password back to what they should be. A quick reboot and not only could she log in, but all of her files were right where she'd left them.
Using a Windows XP system without a password on the Administrator account (or disabling the account altogether) is a potentially dangerous oversight, especially if you have nosy roommates, but this oversight can come in handy sometimes.
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