While I was playing around with Windows Vista Beta 2 I decided to see if some of the old tools for cracking local account password still worked. It would seem that Microsoft has changed how the SAM file and SYSKEY work in Vista so none of my old tricks that use to work with NT 4/2000/XP functioned anymore. I quickly found that most of the current tools as of this writing(Ophcrack 2.3, Cain 2.9, SAMInside 2.5.7.0, Pwdump3) no longer work, which I have mixed feelings about. Its nice to see the extra level of security, but cracking local passwords was always sort of fun as well as useful from time to time.
