windows xp locked nice and tight

Hi
I am in a little predicament. An old tech who worked here put policies on 24
windows xp machines and now when problems arise I cant troubleshoot anything
because everything is locked down. I dont know if he used a third party
software or policies from windows xp. Also the admin account does me no
good. Supposedly he had a cd that I guess you could boot with and restore
the system but I cant find it. Currently I am unable to go to c:, the
registry, control panal, the run command and everything else needed to get
in. Am I dead in the water or is there something I can do to reset this
nightmare.

Mike