I have one of my sons old acer laptops with vista on it.We dont have the user password and have tried everything through bios settings,have also tried a couple of password tools.All i got from them was a blinking curser.So i thought give linux a try,dont care if vista shows up because i just want to use it in my shop with no internet connection.I have the grub boot(GRUB4DOS 0.4)on screen but it says I have to load the kernal,I dont know how to go about this.I do not know if this is the right thing i should be trying.I am not computer savvy either.Thanks for any pointers and your time.

In C:\ is there a folder with name bionicpup(something similar) with the files vmlinuz and initrd.gz in it and a folder called nst with the a file called menu.lst? If so post the contents ot the menu.lst file and the directory that the bionic pup files are in.

What are you going to use it for? Windows programs won't run natively on a linux system.

Thanks for the response,I just would like to use it to hold info for machining purposes/formulas etc.it can be a dirty enviroment so I do not want my good computer in the shop.Also i cant get into my o/s on the vista computer so i just would like a different o/s if possible.If not thats ok.

Is there a way to wipe vista and then install linux since i dont have the user password to get into windows.

Boot into the medium you used install bionicpup, at the bottom of the bionicpup desktop click on the icons till you find the windows C: drive, will most likely be called sda2 or sda3 depending on the computers partition layout. Should have the directories mentioned in my first post along with Windows,Users,Prgrams directories.

I dont quite understand boot into the medium I used to install(real newbie) as im stuck at the grub bootloader and it says i have to load the kernal first,so i guess its actually not installed in windows yet.Please let me know if you think this is not a proper way to solve this as it might not be worth your time.Thanks again. Its running with the usb still plugged in.Im on a diffrent computer.

Need more details on what you have done. How did grub4dos get installed? What bionicpup files did you download and what did you do with them.
To install linux need to download an iso file, burn it to a cd or usb, boot the cd/usb and select the install option. With bionicpup there is other ways to do this but the computer you want to install to needs a working windows system.
here are some links on how to install puppy
http://puppylinux.com/install.html
https://www.wikihow.com/Install-Puppy-Linux

I downloaded puppy onto my other laptop and then into a usb with Rufus I then put the usb into my old vista laptop and booted it through the bios.It got to the grub menu with grub>- flashing hyphen.I then got it to tell me I needed to load the kernal and thats where Im lost on whats next.All i can get into is the bios as the user password has been forgotten and I cant go any further into Vista.If I could find the password Im sure the Vista o/s would still work,its been sitting for years but booted up to the user window quite quick.Im probably not asking the right as as this is new to me.

with rufus use the option to write in dd format for bionic pup

Here are two links on how to use ubuntu to change the windows password, have you tried this.

https://www.ubuntupit.com/how-to-res...linux-live-cd/

https://www.lifewire.com/reset-windo...-linux-2202068

here is another link using linux system rescue cd
https://www.top-password.com/knowled...x-boot-cd.html

Thanks for the links I will check them out and let you know how I make out.Once again thanks for your time.

I just checked out and bionicpup comes with the chntpw that is used to change the windows password

I'm booted into xenial pup 64 as I type with no install. I'm booting the iso with grub2 strait off hd(0,2)/iso/xernialpup64.iso and have a persistent file.
hd0,2 is my deditcated iso booting hard drive.

I have installed Win7, Ubuntu 18.04, Mint 18, Ubuntu 9.10 (don't use), Knoppix8.1 Poor mans install and Arch Linux.
Also still have a 2010 Arch install that works. I had backed it up off a failing hard drive years ago and found it again and copied it back to a good HD many years later to see if it still works and it does but can't be updated.

It sux that the older OS's no longer have working browsers. I loved Knoppix 5.1 and 5.3 but their browsers and email don't work right anymore. I can boot all of those old iso's that I love. I boot Knoppix 8.1 and Kali by iso as well.