Most facinating what you find if you look. The registry does store some passwords in plain text. The importance of the passwords you do find depends on your installation. I found 'password' and 'username' entries at the below locations, but not much software was installed on these NT boxes. Searching the NT registry for my password string did not did not display anything, searching the W95 registry for my specific password string found it in many places: password locations: hkey_local_machine\system\controlset001\services\gophersvc\parameters ...\controlset002\" ...\curentcontrolset\" ...\msftpsvc\parameters ...\w3svc\parameters\ username locations: \hkey+local_machine\software\microsoft\windowsnt\currentversion\winlogon\ ...\system\controlset001\services\bh\parameters ...\controlset002\" ...\curentcontrolset\" ...\services\gophersvc\parameters\anonymouseusername ...\logsqlusername ...\msftpsvc\parameters\anonymoususername ...\logsqlusername ...\w3svc\parameters\anonymoususername ...\logsqlusername