A few months ago my dads cousin brought his familys computer around for me to fix, after his petulant 14yr old broke it, insisting he was ‘trying to make it better’.
What I did at the time was to restrict administrative access ( it’s winxp) and change the Administrator password.
Now it’s broken again so was brought round to the PC surgery (my house). So there’s me trying to log into the recovery console with the password that I’d set, only to find it didn’t work. Then I’m thinking have I got it right?…
So after the owner returns home, he reads out what the password is (or should be), which I confirm still doesn’t work.
Then the annoying child pipes up with ‘try voyager’ meaning that he’d changed it.
Now obviously changing a windows password without Admin access or ‘special tools’ is quite difficult, so it would appear (as the child admitted) that after his father had logged into the Administrator account with the password I gave and the child out of the room, the child went to the computer and changed the Administrator password (to what he wanted) so he could get in!
While I must applaud the ingenuity, is it any surprise the computer is broken again?..
This kind of behaviour (from adults in the workplace) is why I’ve just got a new job, but sadly relations are slightly different (especially when I want them to fix my car 😉 ) but if the child does it again, then I shall just remove all his games and he’ll only use the computer for schoolwork, in a shared environment. Try to fight against me and you will lose 😛