If you've ever forgotten your Windows password, don't fret: It's simple to rediscover it with a free, open-source program called Ophcrack (available from SourceForge: http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/). Just download the CD (.iso image) and burn it to a CD, then put the CD in the computer in question and reboot. Ophcrack examines the files where the Windows user passwords are stored and matches them against a pre-built dictionary of possibilities (millions of them) to find the correct ones.
While this is good news, it should also point out a weakness in computer passwords: anyone with physical access to your machine can do the same thing! So, don't think a clever password is going to protect you against someone obtaining the information on your computer, especially if they have physical access to it (remember that next time you take your computer in to the repair shop). And reading the files on that computer is even easier (not even requiring your password, unless you're using encryption to scramble them).
Although there is no such thing as perfect computer security (just like home security), there are many individual steps you can take to make your computers--and the valuable information they contain--safer. Maintaining physical security is one of them.
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