used hp touchscreen laptop and can't do anything

[Bestmomever]

I was given an hp touchscreen laptop from a friend that ownes a towing company and it was in an impounded car that the bill was never paid for so now our friend ownes the car. The laptop so far seems to be running properly but I am unable to do anything since whoever owned it obviously signed in with a password and this person also was the administrator. I am able to get in under guest but I can't make a new profile for myself and I can't delete there's and I can't change settings on the computer since I'm under guest and everything asks for this persons password. How do I delete the past user since they were password protected and how do I make a new profile and become the administrator??

 

[Saga Lout]

Firstly, here in England, the towing company might be entitled to the car but not the contents so they wouldn't be allowed to let you have it. It may be different where you are.

That said, the only thing you can do is to wipe the machine clean and start again with a new operating system. The password is there to protect the owner's personal data and there's no way around it. If you have the relevant Windows DVD and can get into StartUp Repair, choose Command Prompt then in that form, type
net user Administrator /active:yes
and press Enter.

You might get away without the DVD if you mash the power switch to shutdown and start up. Do that a few times and it might offer you StartUp Repair.

Whichever way you get and do the above, restart the machine and log into the Administrator account and in Control Panel>User Accounts, create a new account for yourself with administrative privileges. At the same time, click Manage Another Account and delete the owner's account completely, including all his/her files.

Power it down then switch back on and see if there's a message about which Function key to press to reset the machine back to factory settings. It may call itself Recovery.

If you don't have that facility you need to buy an operating system. Windows will cost a lot but many Linux systems are free and can be downloaded and put on to a USB flash drive for installation.