Forgotten or Lost Windows XP Password

Description

You’ve forgotten or lost the password to all administrator accounts on your Windows XP PC and need to gain access to it.

Symptoms

• You have changed your Windows password and have forgotten the new password
• You have not created emergency reset disks
• There are no other administrator accounts on the system

Explanation

This problem occurs when the password to Windows XP (administrator) account is forgotten or typed incorrectly when being changed. To get around this problem we can change the administrator password to Windows XP by accessing the User & Groups control panel item during a repair of windows and reset your password. Step by step instructions below. Solutions Below….

Solution – Access Windows through the back door!

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into the PC that you cannot access and switch it on or reboot
2. Boot from the CD – on most PC’s you will be prompted to hit any key to boot from CD. This message will appear on a black screen with white writing.

If you cannot boot from the CD easily I suggest firstly enter your BIOS or Setup Utility as it’s sometimes called and ensuring that the order of your boot devices is set to CD first

3. If you have successfully booted from the Windows CD then you will see a blue Windows Setup screen and it will do it’s thing for a few minutes
4. Press ENTER to continue
5. Now press F8 to accept the licence agreement
6. On the next screen you will be presented with a few options. Choose the option to Repair your existing Windows installation by pressing ‘R’ on the keyboard
7. At this point you can allow windows to continue with the repair process until you are at the point where the setup displays ‘Installing Devices’ in the lower left corner.
8. At this point press Shift + F10 on the keyboard
9. You will be presented with a CMD console. Type NUSRMGR.CPL and press Enter
10. The User Accounts control panel application will now appear. Select any of your administrator accounts and change or remove your password as you like
11. When finished, close the User Accounts window and allow the repair process to finish. DO NOT attempt to cancel the repair process
12. When the repair process is finished your system will restart and you can login successfully

You may be asked for you Product Key and/or to activate windows.