Unknown Administrator Password

[Chris McClain]

Our previous web developer, who installed CF on our company webserver, is no
longer employed with us. We do not know the Administrator password, and when
the previous web developer was contacted, she recalled a password but that did
not work when I tried it (surprise!)

We are considering uninstalling and then reinstalling CF to create a new
Administrator password, and I've been reviewing some of the articles about it
in the knowledgebase. However, the previous web developer stated that would
cause the website to be "ruined".

It does not seem logical that uninstalling-reinstalling CF would totally ruin
the website. I would expect the site would be unavailable while doing the
uninstall-reinstall but then be back in business once that was completed.

Does anyone see any other option besides uninstall-reinstall? Has anyone had
any experience like this?

Thanks for your insight.

[ksmith]

On cfmx the administrator password is set in cfusionmx\lib\neo-security.xml.
Make a backup of this file. Then open the original in wordpad or another
editor. Search for 'admin.security.enabled'. The next xml tag is a boolean,
set it false. Save the file. Restart cfmx. Open the admin, no password
needed. Go to security in the admin and set a new password. Re-enable
password protection.