Default password



  • Let me start by stating that I am in no way qualified to rebuild a server. Having said that, I was assigned the task of rebuilding a Windows Small Business Server. My first step is to reinstall the OS (no backups since there is no data on the server...long story). Luckily there was a handy bootable CD that made the entire process very boring. Fast forward an hour or so, and the server has restarted and immediately locked the session. No problem. I'll just use the default administrator login to finish the setup. After several failed attempts to unlock the server I gave tech support a try. They have no idea what the password defaults to. On a whim I tried an empty string. Success! Now I can change the admin password and finish setup. Not so fast, buckaroo. The setup instructions say not to change the admin account in any way until you have finished setup. Okay, so I just won't plug in the network cable. Wrong again. Setup needs to have the network cable plugged in. Argh!
     



  • You are behind a firewall, right?

    Otherwise... sucks to be you.

     



  • Yes, there is a firewall. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether it works.

    More goodies: The setup routine has a checklist you can print out before you begin. This is nice, except that setting up a printer is one of the last steps in the checklist. Who thought that one out?
     



  • [quote user="biter"]

    Yes, there is a firewall. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether it works.

    [/quote]

    Check your shields, man! Go to http://www.grc.com and run Shields Up!

     



  • [quote user="biter"]More goodies: The setup routine has a checklist you can print out before you begin. This is nice, except that setting up a printer is one of the last steps in the checklist. Who thought that one out?[/quote]

    The setup is like a tiny windows installation.

    I'm pretty sure there's something like a "default printer driver", a rudimentary thing that allows you to print stuff. In Courier 12pt, just as there is a default monitor+video driver that allows you to actually [i]see[/i] stuff.



  • Perhaps the idea is that you print (and preferably read) the instructions *before* formatting the server and starting the installation CD you probably know nothing about.

    Or just COPY file.txt LPT1: - works nicely if the printer&file is postscript or if the file is plain text. If you need to use a network printer, you'll need to install it first - then you can set it up as a virtual LPTn: port to use with COPY, or just use it as a normal printer with Notepad.

    If the installation instructions are in HTML, you'll be out of luck unless the server a) has Internet Explorer (yay! servers with insecure web browsers!) b) you want to read it all in HTML code.



  • [quote user="themagni"][quote user="biter"]

    Yes, there is a firewall. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether it works.

    [/quote]

    Check your shields, man! Go to http://www.grc.com and run Shields Up!

     

    [/quote]

    There's a pretty decent chance that lots of stuff will pop up, at least maybe a web or mail server. After all, you don't think that's the ONLY server behind the firewall, do you? (I'm sure there'd have been a lot more pressure on him if that was the case...) Most businesses have more than one static ip, but 3-5 can service a mid-size business quite well. Stuff tends to pop up on all of them. (On my own, the first IP is the firewall's https/ssh remote logon along with most outgoing connections.)



  • Actually a blank password is the safest password you can have in Windows to deny remote access via that account. The Network Subsystem won't let an authentication pass if the user has a blank password.



  • [quote user="biter"]

    More goodies: The setup routine has a checklist you can print out before you begin. This is nice, except that setting up a printer is one of the last steps in the checklist. Who thought that one out?
     

    [/quote]

    Was it the same person who used to put up the error that went something like "Keyboard error.  Press F2 to continue" when you tried booting your computer (to DOS - I feel ancient!) without the keyboard attached.

     

     


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