Resetting Forgotten Windows Passwords

Occasionally I will have a person bring me a computer with a password protected user account that they don’t know the password to.  There is commercial software that you can purchase to reset the password but why pay for it if you don’t have to.

Windows Reset Disk

Windows 7 offers you a way to reset your password using a password reset disk.  The only problem with this is that you have to have made the disk prior to forgetting the password.  Who plans for that?  But if you did plan ahead good for you.

Offline Password Reset

Now the majority of people who didn’t plan ahead.  There is a program called Offline NT Password Registry Editor.  You can download a reset CD from them directly or you can also acquire the program with the Hiren Boot CD.  I use the Hirens Boot CD

  1. Boot your computer using the Hirens Boot CD
  2. Select Offline NT Password Changer
  3. After it is loaded the first prompt will ask you to select a partition.  You need to select the partition where windows is installed. IF your are unsure try picking the largest partition
  4. You will need to select the directory path to your windows registry.  The program will check to see if it can find the path to you registry files.  If it does, it will default to that partition.  You can usually just enter through this.  I find that if it could not find the path you have selected the wrong partition.
  5. Next you need to select “Password Reset”.
  6. You will now want to select “Edit User Data and Passwords”
  7. The program will list all of the users that it finds. You can just type in the name of the user that you want to edit.
  8. You will be given a few choice once you select a user.  I have had some problems trying to edit the users password, especially in Windows 7, so I usually clear (blank) out the users password.
  9. After clearing out the password you will need save the registry changes.
  10. You can now remove the boot CD from your computer and restart.  The computer should automatically boot up and move right to the desktop.  If not you might have to type in the username your cleared out and log in with no password.
  11. Once you have logged in you can go to the control panel and select user accounts.  From there you can create a new password for your account.