No Password For Only Account = Completely Boned?

Qouted for various sources on the internet and re-wrote in my own words "If there is only 1 account on your vista rig, and you loose the password for the account, you have to run out, buy a new installation disc for a few hundred and reinstall"

Is this true?

One night while my grilfriend was sick as heck, she decided to change her password. not really smart cause when she woke up the next morning, she didn't remember anything from that day. so now she has no password. now, if this was XP i'd be able to open it up in safe mode, jump into the administer account and and make the password something simple. but since it's vista, the powers that be decided that it would be best if the administer account was not enabled by default. so i cannot go through in safe mod to change the windows password. i tried the reset password technique, but to do that you need a password reset disc such as a floppy disc,(no port) or flash drive that somehow has the windows install on it. right. i've tryed password cracking softwear. that worked on my home XP, and it got my password, and my brothers. but when i tried the Vista versions on her Piece of C, it came up with no password set.

we're all relitivly poor and cant afford $200 for XP or Vista just to loose all the stuff she had on her computer. please. prove me wrong. tell me how to get passed the password on her computer so that we can get all of our pictures and crap off.