lost outlook password for sign in on laptop?????

[sonny16]

my sister loaned out her laptop,  they changed her email login on windows,  Ive tried all the f1  to f12 buttons to bring up the safe mode,  nothing works?,   it shows an email address as not her own, outlook.com  instead of gmail.com   no idea on the password?  can anyone help me to help her,,,would greatly appreciate it..Thanks

[IT_WinSec]

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@sonny16 wrote:

my sister loaned out her laptop,  they changed her email login on windows,  Ive tried all the f1  to f12 buttons to bring up the safe mode,  nothing works?,   it shows an email address as not her own, outlook.com  instead of gmail.com   no idea on the password?  can anyone help me to help her,,,would greatly appreciate it..Thanks

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Hi @sonny16

Welcome to the HP Support forum.

Could you elaborate more on who did your sistem loan the laptop to, why, what happened ?

F1 to F12 will not help because the old school F8 way to enter Safe Mode is no longer valid for newer operating systems. HP Stream notebook uses Windows 8.1 or Windows 10. F8 used to work for up to Windows 7. There is a different way in the newer Windows versions but even if you managed to load Safe Mode, this would not help much.

If now it shows outlook.com login account, this means somebody used the laptop with their email account (their Microsoft account) which is outlook.com

Your sister's account was (is) gmail.com but this is not the last used account.

What is your Windows - 10, 8.1 ,etc?

Do you see an option or button to use a different user (switch user)  at the login screen > https://www.winhelp.us/windows-basics.html

[sonny16]

i did some research and found out f10 takes me to setup utility screen,  no luck there.

ok,  she loaned it to her 7yr old grandson,  my sister an his mom got into an argument and when she got it back her email address changed from gmail.com to outlook.com,

when you open this laptop for some reason it shows the email address and asks for password to logon to the computer,  Ive never saw this before, im old school and thought the f keys may help me,  wrong.

it is an hp stream with win8.1   i was able to download all the update files to a usb flash drive, hoping to go that route if it lets me.

hope this helps with any questions,  Thanks for your response

[sonny16]

sorry,  forgot to add to your question on users,  it only shows an arrow pointing to the right to submit the password,  i was hoping to see other user as well,   Thanks

[sonny16]

by the way,  when i try a password,  it states  your pc is offline,please signin with the last password used on this pc        why would it say pc is off line?

[IT_WinSec]

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@sonny16 wrote:

by the way,  when i try a password,  it states  your pc is offline,please signin with the last password used on this pc        why would it say pc is off line?

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Probably because the computer is really offline, wi-fi may have been disabled or your PC is just not connected to any wireless network at that moment.

You do not need to try with random passwords, you need to ensure the correct account is selected and that you use it and its password.

Try pressing the combination of Ctrl+Alt+Delete

to see if this will change anything.

Would you be able to take a picture with your smartphone or camera , and attach it back here ?

[IT_WinSec]

You might try using SYSTEM RESTORE to restore your PC to a previous state

System protection is a feature that regularly creates and saves information about your computer's system files, programs, drivers, and registry settings as restore points for all drives that have system protection turned on. You can use these restore points to do a system restore to return these items to an earlier point in time without affecting personal files (ex: anything in C:\Users\(user-name) folder). Restore points are created just before significant system events, such as the installation of a program or device driver. They're also created automatically by Windows using a scheduled task once every seven days if no other restore points were created in the previous seven days 

Press the power on-button on your PC and hold it for about 5-10 seconds until your computer powers off completely.

Remove and unplug any external periferals and accessories.

Press once the power-on button to turn on the PC and 

As soon as you press the power-on button, immediately begin hitting the Esc button (like tap-tap-tap) before any logo appears. This should open a HP Startup Menu

- Choose F11 for System Recovery options.

The computer should boot from it's recovery partition to open you various recovery options. Note, that F11 option will only work if the recovery partition is there (not deleted) and intact. From there, you have prenty of options to choose from. Every HP computer comes with recovery partition present to assist in tough moments.

Please, perform "System Restore" first in an attempt to fix the issue. Please, restore back to previous days (restore point) where the issue was not present. Here is more info:

>> http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03327545#AbT5

>> https://www.eightforums.com/threads/system-restore-how-to-do-in-windows-8.4692/

[sonny16]

i tried ctrl, alt and delete,  nothing

i did what you said and kept tapping esc button   yes  that worked,  it shows f1  f2  f9  f10 and f11   right now im doing the system quick test,   now if i can only change her email address    that would be great!!   does this type of laptop always open with the persons email address and password?,  or do you think it was set up like that?,  would be easier if it opened up to windows screen.    I appreciate your help  and I know my sister does...Thank You

[IT_WinSec · Accepted solution]

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@sonny16 wrote:

i tried ctrl, alt and delete,  nothing

i did what you said and kept tapping esc button   yes  that worked,  it shows f1  f2  f9  f10 and f11   right now im doing the system quick test,   now if i can only change her email address    that would be great!!   does this type of laptop always open with the persons email address and password?,  or do you think it was set up like that?,  would be easier if it opened up to windows screen.    I appreciate your help  and I know my sister does...Thank You

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Thank you for the picture.

You need to only use F11, not make any tests.

It's not about this laptop, it's about how Windows [the operating system] has been configured - it can be set up with no login credentials, with many credentials, one or many users, etc...

If it opened directly to Windows screen, it would have been less secure than it is now.

From the picture I see where the problem may be. It only has 1 account active. The active account is the Outlook.com one

The Gmail.com may have been deleted/disabled/changed , on this PC.

If this notebook had more accounts, you should have had an arrow pointing to the left. If you pressed this left arrow, ther other accounts would have appeared and you/your wife would have been able to use the Gmail account/password to login. No such thing now.

If you (respectively your wife) are not the owner of this Outlook.com account, you cannot use it to login. Considering this and the above, I will have to tell you that your only other legal/official option is to perform Factory Reset (restore the PC to factory default condition) or reinstalling Windows 8.1 from scratch.

Here is how this can be completed >> http://hp.dezide.com/ts/start.jsp?guide=HPSystemRecovery.net&section=ccweb&sfs=tdoc&lc=en&language=e...

[sonny16]

Thank You  Thank You    I did the system recovery and it worked!!!!   it started up on windows !!  Yes  wish i could give you 50 kudos!!!!   she will be happy now