Often we forget passwords for all kinds of devices. This can be a password to reset your phone or email. But there is nothing worse than blaming yourself for having forgotten the administrator password from a working computer. But, fortunately, this problem can be quickly resolved. Everything about everything will take a maximum of 5 minutes according to the instructions below, if it is an ordinary case, when the password is lost for a computer with two accounts.
The fastest way to log in as Administrator. This is because, by default, an empty password is set for this user, and the Windows installer requires you to create a second user with the same rights on which we set the password and forget it. If this is the situation, then try the next trick. When the password request window opens, press the combination Ctrl + Alt + Del, the system displays a simple authorization window and instead of the account from which the administrator password has been forgotten, we type in the Administrator login field and leave the password field empty. Presses Enter and log in. Go to the control panel, the "User Accounts" icon and change the password of our ill-fated account to a new one. Congratulations, it’s not so bad if the user forgot the administrator password on the PC where the pair of accounts. So this was the simplest case when you do not need to use specialized programs to reset the password. But this does not always happen.
Sometimes a user sits under a single Administrator account (categorically it is not recommended to do this for security reasons, it is optimal to use an account with limited rights). But one way or another, the password to the only account was lost. What to do? You can use the software package on the boot disk for service providers - Hiren's Boot CD (the network already has version 15.1 for free download, recommended!). It is advisable to take the latest version. Download the distribution of this wonderful version on another PC and burn it to a blank DVD-R. Then we reset the password using the utility built on the basis of the Linux kernel, which will help if you forget the administrator password (Offline NT Password and Registry Editor). It should be noted that if you are allergic to the command line, you should take ERD Commander 2005 or some other live cd distribution based on Windows, which necessarily includes programs for resetting the password. But it is not necessary to use such bulky utilities if you need a one-time password reset. You can also use specialized bootable disks, the images of which are written to the disk instantly, they can be found in a huge number on the network. The principle of operation of any such program is simple - making changes to the configuration of SAM files. If you do not have a DVD drive on that machine, you will need to create a bootable USB flash drive. All of the above recommendations apply if the user has forgotten the Windows XP administrator password.
But for Windows 7 there are ways much easier. To do this, boot from the installation or recovery disc and select "System Restore" (command line item). After that, use the regedit command to load registry editing and the SYSTEM bush from your installation, where you forgot the password (C: \ WindowsSYSTEM32 \ CONFIG). We give the registry bush a name other than SYSTEM, and edit the Setup section (located directly in the root section of the bush), correcting the Cmdline section on cmd.exe, and in the SetupType section set the number 2. Unload the registry bush and reboot. Thus, we get the command line with administrator rights, despite the fact that the negligent user forgot the Windows 7 administrator password. After rebooting in normal mode, instead of the user input window, a command line appears where you need to type net user USERNAME NEW_PASSWORD. If you do not know the name of the account, you can find it out right there just by setting net user without parameters.