I'm not sure what model of laptop you're talking about, but usually you 
can hold the power button down until the system completely powers down. 
You can then release and press the power button normally to do a clean 
boot. Note that some desktop systems behave the same way. In fact, the 
power button is sometimes configurable to behave differently depending 
on how long you hold it down, e.g. go into stand by mode, hibernation or 
power off.

It sounds like there's a administrator account on there system and they 
somehow selected that user account when they were logging on. Hopefully 
they have an account on that system where they do know the password.

I'm not sure how they could have gotten an administrator account on that 
system without knowing the password. Did someone set the system up for 
them or did they install it themselves? If it was set up for them or it 
came with Windows installed and an administrator account already created 
then hopefully the password for that account is in the documentation.

Good Luck!

Lisa McManus wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>  
> My question about a problem with a laptop came to me from a sighted 
> person who wanted me to try to help them.  I have never used a laptop 
> so I really wasn't much help. 
>  
> She, somehow, got the computer into the mode where it says something 
> on the screen about the administrator and it wanting her password.  
> This person has just started to use a computer a few months ago.  She 
> said she didn't have to put her password in before so I guess she 
> doesn't know what that is to be able to put that in.  There is an ok 
> button, but when she pressed that the screen went blank.  I didn't 
> know how to tell her to restart the computer because she says that 
> pressing the power button didn't do anything either.  Being that there 
> is a battery in the computer I don't know how to tell her to get it 
> shut down completely to start things all over. 
>  
> If anyone has any ideas on this problem I would really appreciate it.  
> I would like to know how to tell her to get it back to working 
> normally and if anything happens again that she needs to restart the 
> computer how she can do that even with the battery.  Thanks so much in 
> advance. 
>  
> Lisa
>  
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Christopher

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