How To Reset Windows Passwords if you cannot login anymore
Dear readers, I've got many messages asking for a post on resetting windows login password. I've neglected this concept as googling gives you the answer. But, to satisfy your needs, here is a post. :)
If you forgot the password, you can use a password reset disk which is prepared by following the instructions that are given by Microsoft. In Windows XP, we used to have an Administrator account to bypass. Now coming to Windows 7, there are many solutions. But this post is about using a third party tool.
Firstly, you no need to re install the Operating System. Use the Trinity Rescue Kit .
You actually have the choice between setting it to a blank password or changing it to a new one.
It
can be run from a bootable CD, USB device or network over PXE. The
bootable CD is my choice and I always keep one around in case of
emergency. Just boot from the CD if you cannot login into Windows
anymore because it asks for a password that you cannot remember.
You can start once the message “Welcome to Trinity..” appears on the screen. Use the command winpass -l to list all usernames of the system. Now enter winpass -u
(for instance winpass -u Martin). This will lead to a series of
dialogs, make sure to press n when asked if you want to deactivate
Syskey.
You are given a choice to
(1) remove the password
(2) set
a new password or
(3) make the selected user an administrator of the
system.
The file system is based on Linux which means that you will not see the
usual c,d,e drives like you do in Windows. Hda, hdb, hdc are the hard
drives connected to your computer and the numbers behind are the
partitions of those hard drives. Hda1 for instance means the first
partition of the first hard drive which is usually the location of the
Windows installation while hdc2 would refer to the second partition of
the third hard drive.
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