Forgot Windows Password

Description:

You’ve forgotten or lost the password to all administrator accounts on your Windows XP, 2000, 2003, Vista or 98 computer and need to get in somehow.

OK, firstly if you’re a Windows XP user, I’d highly recommend you try this article first:  Lost/Forgotten Windows XP Password.

If that doesn’t work out for you, come back here and continue with this solution.

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 for all administrator accounts to any of the above systems is forgotten or typed incorrectly when being changed.

Solution

Warning – If you have files that are encrypted then these will not be accessible after resetting your password

Disclaimer – proposedsolution.com or the author accept no responsibility for data loss as a result of using this tool

You need the following:

• A PC/Mac you can access and use to create a CD or DVD.
• Blank CD or DVD
• CD or DVD Drive and software capable of writing a CD from an ISO file
• The software (downloadable below)

You can also create either a bootable floppy disk or use a USB drive instead of a CD/DVD. See readme.txt within the software download for details.

Step by step (don’t skip any!)

1. On a working PC/MAC, download Offline NT Password & Registry Editor by clicking here (this will open in a new window/tab)
2. Extract the ISO file to your hard disk
3. Using your CD/DVD burning software create a bootable CD or DVD from the ISO file
4. Insert the newly created CD/DVD into the PC that you want to reset the password on and switch it on
5. If you are prompted to press any key to boot from CD then press any key. If at this point your PC refuses to boot from the CD/DVD then ensure that the system is capable of booting from CD/DVD and if it is ensure that your startup devices are set correctly in the system BIOS. (Setup utility)
6. At the [boot] prompt press enter.
7. The next prompt will display your partitions and you must choose carefully the correct partition that your windows installation is on. If you have only one the accept the default of [1] and press enter
8. If windows was shutdown incorrectly you will get a warning. At this point you can reboot into windows (if you can access windows as a Standard user) or select Y to force changes
9. You will now be asked for the path to the registry. Unless you are an advanced user who knows differently, select the default path by simply hitting Enter
10. Now you are asked which part of the registry to load. Enter 1 for password reset and hit Enter
11. Next you are asked what to do. Enter 1 to ‘Edit user data and passwords’ and hit Enter
12. Now you will be presented with a list of users on the systems. Select one of the users with ‘ADMIN’ next to it by typing in the actual username in the ‘Username’ column and hit Enter
13. You will now be presented with information about the user id and also the User Edit Menu. Type 2 and hit Enter to set a new password for the user you selected in step 11
14. Type new password and hit Enter
15. Type ! and hit Enter to quit
16. Now type q and hit Enter to quit
17. Type Y to the question ‘About to write file(s) back! Do it? and hit Enter
18. Type N and hit Enter to ‘New Run? question
19. Remove the CD/DVD from your PC and restart the computer
20. All going well, you will be able to login to Windows as normal with your newly set password