contact Microsoft, that's the only way to break admin password if you forget. this was given by microsoft in their help etc documents.
murali

Actually there are at least two ways to reset the Admin password. Both are risky, but they're better than losing your data.
First you could replace um.dat using the um.dat from a fresh SourceSafe installation (which by default has a blank Admin password). You then have to delete rights.dat and status.dat. You should be able to login as Admin, but you've lost all your users, so you have to add them back. I haven't tried this, and it is more complicated than I've said: see http://www.amundsen.com/articles/article.asp?File=vsslostpw
Second you could hack um.dat to reset the Admin password. I did this by comparing um.dat from my SourceSafe installation with that of a fresh SourceSafe installation. I just had to change a few bytes in the vicinity of the Admin username.

Hi

I hacked the um.dat file to remove the Admin password

from offset 80 the bytes are (all numbers are hex)

0:80  55 55 bc 7f 41 64 6d 69 6e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0:90  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0:a0  00 00 00 00 90 6e 00 00 a8 01 00 00 00 00 00 00


This information is at YOUR OWN RISK

Thanks Finn,
Yours hack worked fine on my copy of Sourcesafe v5

jizzlobber and Finn,
I have the same problem with SourceSafe 6.0.  Do you know where the offset starts for the password?  And I am not sure what you did with the numbers at offset 80.  Did you just change values '55' thru '6e' to '00'?

Thanks Finn,

You hack worked for me too. Billpetrie just load the um.dat file into a hex editor and change the bytes from offset 80 to exactly what Finn has typed include all bytes even the one from offset a0. When sourcesafe admin starts it believes that an admin password has never been selected before ... excellent

Worked fine to me 2 on VSS6
Thanks allot

Microsoft tech support will step you through the procedure to create a new password - I don't know if they charge for the call. The following URL lists the procedure (same as what microsoft will tell you).

http://www.amundsen.com/articles/article.asp?File=vsslostpw

Works a treat. Cheers Finn

It works!
VS6 SP5.
Thank you very much, Finn Brodersen.

The step-by-step instructions to reset the admin password are on the following web page:

http://www.amundsen.com/articles.aspx?CatID=7867&PostID=8206

I have some additional information on this. It is useful if you have users you want to save. For some reason, my Admin user wasn't defined at offset 0x80. Instead, it was at 0x104. When I followed the instructions above, it would have overwrote a different user defined at that location. I WAS ABLE TO SEE THIS BECAUSE MY HEX EDITOR ALSO DISPLAYED AN ASCII VERSION ON THE SIDE! So I could see where the user name definition began in the file.

MAKE A BACKUP OF THE UM.DAT FILE FIRST!!!!

I use VSS 6.0 on NT.

It looks like user definitions begin every 64 bytes, like at 0x80, 0xC0, 0x100, 0x140. You can see that users start with the bytes 55 55 XX XX - where XX XX seem to vary.

The only thing I did different from Finn's directions above was to start at the offset for my Admin user. And then I FOLLOWED HIS DIRECTIONS EXACTLY! It worked fine.

Of course, it is entirely possible that this was a fluke and these directions may completely screw up your dat file. SO MAKE A BACKUP OF THE FILE FIRST!!!!

Hi, Excellent tip!
I found that the offset can be different for each um.dat. As the um.dat is ordered alphabetically by login. If you have a user name that appears aplhabetically before "Admin" they will appear at offset 80. And Admin will apear further down the file. morgancrr tip is useful to know - as it will help you locate the Admin password on your own particular set up. This has been a very useful tip - saved me hours of creating a new source safe & adding all the users again.. Thanks Finn Brodersen...!!