used PC blocked with passwords

I bought a used HP PC at a flea market. The seller showed me that it worked OK. I used it and it did work OK. But after I brought it home and tried to set it up the way I wanted it I found that I couldn't do anything without entering a password. I tried to install ccleaner, bit defender, malwarebytes but had to enter a password to do it. Can't open system restore without a password. Can't open computer management, user accounts in control panel, or change any settings at all. I can't uninstall some of the things I don't want either without a password. Everything I try to do I have to enter a password. I don't know who the seller was to get the password from him. It boots OK and then asks for a password. I press enter and it then continues to desktop. The computer works fine otherwise. How can I turn off this asking for a password for EVERYTHING I do? In a way I feel like I'm locked out of my computer. Thank you.

NO, I got a pretty good deal. It's just weird that EVERYTHING is password protected. Can't install or uninstall without a password. I think it has something to do with the administrator account...but what?

I don't have a win10 setup disk to do a clean install so I tried to go to settings/recover/reset this PC but I can't do that either because it wants a password. There has to be a way to find the password or remove it. I bought the computer because my old computer had win 7 on it and I read where it's history now.

If this computer has win 10 on it you could always get the iso for 10 and do a fresh installhttps://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...d/windows10ISO

If I understand, you can't get in to BIOS/CMOS setup due to a password, right? If so, you can sometimes remove the internal CMOS battery, wait ten minutes, replace the CMOS battery, and the password *might* be removed.

Some BIOS passwords can't easily be removed, and I've had no luck in getting help from the manufacturer of laptops since they think the laptop is stolen. There are people on the Internet who tell you they can sell you replacement ROMS that will remove the password, but I've never used them.

This is what I've done (though note the new laptop will still have a CMOS password):

1. Remove the hard disk from the password protected laptop and install the hard disk in another laptop.
2. Do a clean install of Windows 10 on the second laptop. Don't worry too much about updating the drivers (either Windows updates or driver updates) on the second laptop.
3. Important: once Windows 10 is on the second laptop, go to the command prompt and type slmgr -upk and press the Enter key. This removes the product key (if it has one) from the second laptop.
4. Remove the hard drive from the second laptop and reinstall it on the original laptop.
5. Boot the original, password-protected laptop and finish the Windows Updates and hardware drivers.

Good luck

collieman said:

I don't have a win10 setup disk to do a clean install so I tried to go to settings/recover/reset this PC but I can't do that either because it wants a password. There has to be a way to find the password or remove it. I bought the computer because my old computer had win 7 on it and I read where it's history now.

You can make a W10 bootable usb to install W10 using your W7 machine. See this tutorial.

Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10


It sounds like this used HP has W10 on it. Does it say in Settings > Update & Security > Activation that it's "Activated with a digital license...." ? If so, this machine has a digital license for W10 stored on Microsoft's activation servers. You can clean install the same edition as it has now (Home or Pro) and if asked for a key click 'I don't have one'. It will activate from the existing digital license as soon as it can contact the activation servers.

Bree said:

You can make a W10 bootable usb to install W10 using your W7 machine. See this tutorial.

Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10


It sounds like this used HP has W10 on it. Does it say in Settings > Update & Security > Activation that it's "Activated with a digital license...." ? If so, this machine has a digital license for W10 stored on Microsoft's activation servers. You can clean install the same edition as it has now (Home or Pro) and if asked for a key click 'I don't have one'. It will activate from the existing digital license as soon as it can contact the activation servers.

Will there be a problem if the digital license is associated with a specific Microsoft account?