{"id":18,"date":"2012-11-16T23:13:27","date_gmt":"2012-11-16T23:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/?p=18"},"modified":"2012-11-16T23:13:27","modified_gmt":"2012-11-16T23:13:27","slug":"how-to-reset-a-windows-password","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/how-to-reset-a-windows-password\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Reset a Windows Password"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are multiple ways to reset windows passwords.\u00a0 This one replaces the sticky key program with a command prompt from which you can change the password.<\/p>\n

\n

To reset the forgotten windows password, follow these steps:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Boot from a Windows setup DVD.\u00a0 Any setup DVD should work.\u00a0 Access the command prompt.<\/li>\n
  2. Find the drive letter of the partition where Windows is installed.\u00a0 In Vista, Windows 8 and XP, it is usually C:, I have read that in Windows 7, it is D: I am not sure which one it is.\u00a0 In most cases because the first partition contains Startup Repair.\u00a0 To find the drive letter, type C: (or D:, respectively) and search for the Windows folder.<\/li>\n
  3. Type the following command (replace \u201cc:\u201d with the correct drive letter if Windows is not located on C:):
    \ncopy c:\\windows\\system32\\sethc.exe c:\\<\/strong>
    \nThis creates a copy of sethc.exe to restore later.<\/li>\n
  4. Type this command to replace sethc.exe with cmd.exe: copy \/y c:\\windows\\system32\\cmd.exe c:\\windows\\system32\\sethc.exe<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. Reboot your computer and start the Windows installation where you forgot the administrator password.<\/li>\n
  6. After you see the logon screen, press the SHIFT key five times.<\/li>\n
  7. You should see a command prompt where you can enter the following command to reset the Windows password:net user your_user_name new_password<\/strong>\n

    If you don\u2019t know your user name, just type net user<\/strong> to list the available user names.<\/li>\n

  8. You can now log on with the new password.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    I recommend that you replace sethc.exe with the copy you stored in the root folder of your system drive in step 3.\u00a0 For this, you have to boot up again with Windows setup DVD because you can\u2019t replace system files while the Windows installation is online.\u00a0 Then you have to enter this command:<\/p>\n

    copy \/y c:\\sethc.exe c:\\windows\\system32\\sethc.exe<\/strong><\/p>\n

    You are now finished.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There are multiple ways to reset windows passwords.\u00a0 This one replaces the sticky key program with a command prompt from which you can change the password. To reset the forgotten windows password, follow these steps: Boot from a Windows setup … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,9],"tags":[14,13,12,11,273],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-command-line","category-reset-passwords","category-windows","tag-command-promt","tag-microsoft","tag-passwords","tag-reset","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.incredigeek.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}