Hello friends. How do I access my local Windows account if I have forgotten the password and the removable reset media has not been created before? Or, for example, the password for the Microsoft account does not work due to the fact that the scammers stole the mailbox and changed the passwords on the accounts of various Internet services, including the Microsoft account. This article will add to the site already on the site. to reset the password to access the computer. The difference between this method and others will be the use for these purposes as a tool not of third-party software, but of the native installation disk or flash drive Windows 7, 8.1 or 10. All those automatic processes that occur when using special software for resetting passwords, we will do manually by editing system registry.
Important: friends, the steps outlined below are offered purely for constructive purposes - when you need to reset the password for your Windows account on your personal device. Or when asked by less experienced computer owners. Hacking devices that do not belong to you against the will of their owners is a criminal offense and is your personal responsibility.
Removable media
So, you need to reset the password of your local Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 account or a connected Microsoft account. What are we doing? First of all, you must have available or specially for these purposes prepare bootable media with any of these versions of Windows, for example, with. Or you can find somewhere in the bins some kind of Live-disk based on WinPE, where there is a system registry editor.
Correct start of the computer from removable media
Booting from the installation media in the case of Windows 8.1 and 10 is necessary only after restarting the computer.
Those. insert the removable media, reboot and immediately enter BOIS to set the boot from the media. Versions 8.1 and 10, unlike version 7, do not turn off completely when the Shut Down option is selected. By default, they are configured for fast startup - using hibernation-based technology with unloading from the system kernel RAM to a file on disk and loading it back into memory at power-up. So rebooting to change the computer's startup device is essential. Otherwise, all the operations suggested below will not be applied.
Resetting Windows Local Account Password
At the first stage of the Windows installation process, press the Shift + F10 keys. The command line will appear. With its help, start the registry editor:
regedit
Click the "File" menu, select "Load bush".
In the browse window, click on the left panel "This computer" and select the system drive (C: \\) among the computer disks - the one on which Windows is installed with a forgotten password. But when choosing we focus not on the letter C, but on the volume of the section. The system partition will not always be marked with the letter C.
Windows - System32 - config
In the "config" package, look for the SAM file and open it.
Once opened, you need to name the loaded registry hive. It can be any name, for example, I'll just give the name 777.
In the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE section, we now have a branch (bush) 777. We expand this branch along this path:
777 - SAM - Domains - Account - Users - Names
And inside the "Names" folder we look for the name of the local account with the forgotten password. In our case, this is the user Vasya. We click on Vasya and on the editor panel on the right we look at what is written in the "Type" column. In our case, this is 0x3ea. We are now looking for the same value in the panel on the left just above, in the "Users" folder. Only now this value will be written in capital letters and with four zeros in front.
We put a pointer to this value with four zeros in front. On the right panel, click the "V" parameter.
We need to edit this parameter. We are looking for in it two following columns "00A0" and "00A8". In the first, we need to replace the value in the first column, in our case 18. In the second column - the value in the fifth column, in our case 38. You, friends, may have other values.
Replace these values \u200b\u200bwith 00. How to do this?
Double-click the left mouse button on the value 18 of the first column of the "00A0" column and when the number is highlighted in blue, press 0 on the keyboard.
It will turn out like this.
Now we double-click the left mouse button on the value 38 of the fifth column of the "00A8" column and when the number is highlighted in blue, press 0 on the keyboard.
It will turn out like this.
Click OK.
Then we click on the created bush, in our case 777. Click on the "File" menu, then - "Unload bush".
We restart the computer. We managed to reset the password for the local account, and now you can log into it without hindrance.
Resetting Microsoft Account Password
Let me remind you, friends, if you have a Microsoft account connected to log in to Windows, you can reset its password without unnecessary dancing with a tambourine. Right on the lock screen of your computer, you can click “Forgot your password” and reset your password as part of the procedure to verify your identity by email or phone number. ... But for this, of course, you must have access from any other device to your email. Alternatively, your phone number is specified and verified in the web version of your Microsoft account in advance. If you did not specify the phone number in advance, and there is no access to the mail, we do the following.
We carry out all the operations discussed in the previous paragraph of the article to reset the password of the local account, but only until the last step, when you need to press the "File" menu and click "Unload the bush". In the folder where we changed the "V" parameter and entered zeros instead of the current values, it is necessary to delete (using the context menu or the Del key) the following parameters:
InternetProviderGUID,
InternetUserName,
CachedLogonInfo (if any).
If you suddenly forget the password for your Windows account, then you have no choice but to look for a way to reset it or install a new operating system, which in my opinion is sheer madness in this case :) Now on the Internet you can find many different reset methods passwords for Windows operating systems using the built-in boot tools of Windows itself, as well as using third-party special programs. Some methods are suitable for some versions of Windows, some for others, and some methods are too complicated for beginners. Earlier in one of the articles, I showed one of the ways to reset the password using a bootable console program built on Linux, but all actions there must be performed in the form of commands on a black screen and for beginners it can be difficult.
In this article, I will show you the simplest way to reset an account password in any version of Windows (I tried it even on Windows 10) using the Reset Windows Password boot program. The reset process is just 4 steps!
I want to warn you right away that if you used a Microsoft account to log in on your computer, and not a standard local one, then none of the programs can reset its password, since the password for a Microsoft account can only be changed on the company's website. Therefore, this method, like all similar ones, works only if you have forgotten the password for the standard local Windows account!
The program is bootable, that is, it cannot be simply installed on a computer as is usually done. The program will start from a disk or flash drive at the stage of computer boot. Those. the program must first be written to a disk or USB flash drive!
Creating a boot disk / flash drive with the Reset Windows Password program and launching it
After the program is downloaded, you need to write it to a disk or USB flash drive. Instructions for burning the program in the form of an ISO file on a CD / DVD disc are located, and for recording a program in ISO on a USB flash drive -.
Since modern laptops can often be found without a disk drive for reading disks, I think that most people will find a way to write a program to a USB flash drive, especially since every computer owner has it.
After you write the program to a disk or flash drive, you need to run it. To do this, you need to restart your computer and configure your BIOS so that the computer boots not as usual from a hard disk, but from a recorded USB flash drive or CD / DVD disc.
In a separate article, I gave instructions on how to configure the BIOS to boot a computer from a disk or flash drive, read it if you have difficulties loading the program:
Each computer may have its own peculiarity of configuring boot from a specific device, so it will not work to give clear recommendations ... But the article on the link above should help most.
When the program starts running, you will see a window similar to booting a regular Windows 7:
Working with the program
When the Reset Windows Password boot program starts, you will need to configure the program in the first window.
First of all, we select the Russian language (1), then in the "Mode of operation" section we select the item "SAM - work with regular accounts" (2) and at the end under the inscription "What do you want to do?" select "Reset or change user password" (3). When everything is configured, click "Next" (4) at the bottom of the window.
The program will perform exactly the password reset (i.e., its erasure, zeroing), and not replace the old password with a new one!
In the next window we can select the path to the "SAM" and "SYSTEM" folders to reset the password.
If you are using standard Windows, where nothing has been globally altered, then the paths do not need to be changed and they will already be set correctly:
C: \\ Windows \\ System32 \\ Config \\ SAM
C: \\ Windows \\ System32 \\ Config \\ SYSTEM
At stage 3, select in the window the Windows account for which we want to reset the password (1) and click "Next" (2).
At the last 4th stage, we press the "Reset / Change" button:
You will be prompted to make a rollback file. With the help of this file, you can restore the system's ability to work in case of its "breakdown" after the program is running.
In general, the program does not go where it is not needed and does not make any serious changes in Windows, so it is easier not to create a rollback file by clicking "No" in this window.
A notification will appear stating that the account has been changed (the password has been reset) and you can close the program and check the changes. Just click "OK" (1) in the notification window and then "Exit" (2) in the program itself.
Now remove the disk / flash drive with the program from the computer and restart it. Windows should boot immediately without asking for a password!
As you can see, this method for resetting the password for Windows accounts is very simple and difficulties may arise, perhaps, only at the stage of loading the program from a USB flash drive or disk. But among all the methods for resetting the password, I did not find a single one that allows you to reset your password without booting from a special boot disk. Therefore, you still can't do without it and it's easier to deal with password reset than reinstalling Windows :))
Have a nice day and great mood! See you in the following articles;)
If you have forgotten the password for your Windows account, do not immediately think about how to reinstall the operating system. There are several options for resetting Windows password these days.
One of the main ways to solve this problem is to create a bootable USB flash drive for password reset Windows XP, 7, 8 or Windows 10. In this article we will look at 2 ways to create such a USB flash drive, as well as information on how to use them.
Creating a USB flash drive for password reset in the "official" way
The first way to create a USB drive, which you can use if you have forgotten your password for logging into Windows, is possible by the built-in tools of the operating system, but it has certain limitations that make it not effective enough.
As a rule, it is suitable if at the moment you can safely log into Windows, and create a USB flash drive for the future, if you suddenly need to reset a forgotten password. If this is not your case, you can immediately proceed to the next option. Second limitation in that it is only suitable for resetting the password of a local account (i.e. if you use a Microsoft online account in Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, then this method will not work).
As a result, the first way to create a password reset flash drive looks like this (it works identically in Windows 7, 8, 10):
This will write a userkey.psw file to your USB drive containing the information required for the reset. This file can be transferred to any other USB flash drive.
To use a USB flash drive, connect it to your computer and enter the wrong password when logging in. If this is a local Windows account, then you will see that a reset item appears below the input field. Click on it and follow the instructions of the wizard.
Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor - Windows password reset utility
The utility has existed for many years, and since then it has not lost its relevance, since the developer has not abandoned its production.This free program can be placed on a bootable USB stick or disk and used to resetting local account password on operating systems 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows 10, as well as previous versions from Microsoft. If you have one of the latest versions and at the same time you are using not a local, but an online Microsoft account to log in, using Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor,You should still be able to access your computer in a workaround way.
ATTENTION: Resetting the password on systems that use EFS file encryption will render these files unreadable. In this case, you will not be able to access the encrypted files until you remember and use the old password.
Next, we will consider the procedure for creating a bootable USB flash drive for password reset using this program and instructions for using it. Note: if for some reason this method did not work, then you can download the ISO image of this utility and write it to a USB flash drive using WinSetupFromUSB.
So, if you managed to complete the steps and the USB drive is ready, connect it to the computer on which you need to reset the password or access the system in another way (if you are using a Microsoft account), put boot from a USB flash drive to BIOS (either in the BIOS settings, explicitly specify the boot of the flash drive first in line, or at startup, press a special key that will bring up a list of bootable devices from which you will need to select your flash drive - which key to press depends on which motherboard is installed in your PC) and proceed with further actions.
After loading the flash drive, on the main screen of the utility you will be prompted to select options (in most cases, you can just press Enter without selecting anything. If in this case problems arise, then use one of the options by entering the specified parameters, for example, bootirqpoll (after that - pressing Enter) if errors related to IRQ occur.
The second screen will show a list of partitions in which the installed Windows were found. You need to specify the number of this section (there are other options, but, as a rule, ordinary users will not need them - loading HDD drivers, the ability to show all partitions or only those on which Windows is probably installed).
After the program determines the presence of the necessary registry files in the selected Windows partition and the possibility of writing operations to the hard disk, you will be offered several options, of which you are interested in the Password reset option, which we select by entering 1 (one).
Next, select again 1 - the Edit user data and passwords option (editing user data and passwords).
The next screen begins the process of resetting the password itself. Here you can see the table of users of your OS, whether they are administrators or not, as well as find out if these accounts are blocked or involved. On the left side of the list are the RID numbers of each user. We select the desired one by entering the appropriate number and pressing Enter.
The next step allows us to choose several actions when entering the corresponding number, namely:
- Reset password of selected Windows user
- Unblock and use another user (this is the feature that allows you to access your computer on Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 with a forgotten Microsoft account password) - in our example, at the previous step, select the hidden Administrator account - in the Lock? indicated for him dis / lock and enable it using this item. This method will work only if the built-in Administrator user was not removed promptly after Windows was installed. This option cannot be used if other users have been removed from the system in addition to the user using a Microsoft account to log in.
- Make the user selected by you an administrator.
- Add user to group
- Remove user from group
If you do not select anything, then pressing Enter will return you to the user selection. So, to reset Windows password, select 1 and press Enter. 
If everything goes well, you will see information that the password has been reset and again the same menu that you saw in the previous step. Press to exit Enter, at the next choice - q , and finally, to save the changes made, enter the command y on request. In the last steps, be careful, if you mix up the commands, the save will not be changed.
This ends the Windows password reset using a bootable USB flash drive Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor completes successfully, now you can remove the USB flash drive from the computer and press Ctrl + Alt + Del to reboot. Finally, if you changed the boot order of the USB flash drive directly in the BIOS settings, then you need to return the boot order and specify the Windows hard drive first in the queue.
Friends, hello everyone! In this article, we will talk about how to reset the password on Windows 7 through a USB flash drive, as well as on the 8th and XP versions of this operating system. And fortunately, this procedure turned out to be quite simple and unpretentious.
After all, the method considered in this article is not standard, where you need to know special operators and enter them correctly using. One free program and a neighbor's computer will be applied here.
And the first thing you need to do is download a utility called Recover My Passwordfrom the official website at this link. It is with its help that Win 7 will be created to reset the password. Fortunately, it is small in size:
Then, of course, we install and run. In the window that opens, click on the single big button in the center:
The next step is to select the version of the operating system on which the password will be reset. But we will not change anything, it is the default setting that will allow us to do this on the entire Windows family except the 10th:
After that, select the desired flash drive:
A message will appear stating that all data on the USB drive will be deleted. We agree with this:
As a result, the process of writing files will start, so you will need to wait a little. Upon completion, select the "Finish" button below:
Okay, now let's see how much space does the program need to create such a USB flash drive for password reset? And as it turned out, quite a bit:
Now all that remains is to put it in BIOS and try to apply our wonderful program in practice. Well, so be it. We load from it and select the item indicated in the picture below:
At the next step, check if the "Reset Windows Password" option is indicated in the line and click the "Next" button below:
The program will ask about non-commercial use. Let's say "Yes":
Then the version of the installed Windows operating system will be automatically detected:
And here it is, the final stage. A list will open in which you should select the name of the administrator account where you want to reset the password. After that press "Next":
Well, that's all, it's done. All that remains is to restart your computer and log on to the system. So now we can safely say that you know how to reset Windows 7 password.
But on Win 10, unfortunately, this trick did not work. This program could not master this system. But if you know such a program, then write about it in the comments to the article. And in conclusion, as always, an interesting video.
Let's describe the problem
Initial conditions:
- computer, laptop with Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8
- the built-in Administrator user is disabled or the password is also forgotten
- all users on the Windows login screen are password-protected and you do not know any
- forgotten password user - regular local account, not Windows LiveID (with mail)
If any of the above does not match, the recovery process may be different.
Problem solving process
What is necessary:
- ability to use torrent networks
- be able to write ISO image to disk / USB
- the actual disc itself (CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD + R, DVD-RW ...) or any blank USB-flash drive of any capacity
- changing the computer boot order
The method and programs specified below are supplied "as is" - AS IS, are not responsible for POSSIBLE damage and inoperability. The author has used this method on several computers and so far there have been no problems.
1. Download BootPass
BootPass - boot disk (Windows 7PE x86).
The disk contains full-featured programs for resetting and editing Windows passwords, programs for removing ransomware banners
Like most bootable discs, they are downloaded in ISO format.
Because a disk image in ISO format is already a standard and any program can write it, even using standard Windows 8 tools.
Download BootPass from a torrent network (for example, http://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t\u003d4487280).
You can download not all files, but only the necessary - the BootPass.iso file itself.
The rest are optional:
- Iso-Burner.exe is a very small program (646kB) for burning an ISO image to disc.
- Rufus.exe or WiNTBootic.exe to write ISO image to USB
- text files - for information and instructions
2. Burning BootPass.iso to disk
Now we burn the downloaded BootPass.iso image to an optical CD-RW or USB.
There are many recording options, we will show only 3:
2.1 By standard Windows 8 tools
Windows 8 makes this very easy. Call the context menu with the right mouse button and select "Burn disk image".
Remember to insert a blank disc.
2.2 Iso-Burner
If you downloaded this program as part of a torrent, then when you start it, a window will appear [email protected] ISO Burner. Only 2 fields - specify the path to the ISO image, select a CD-RW or DVD-RW burner. Click "Burn ISO".
2.3 used to UltraISO
Because she knows how to write both files and ISO images to optical disks and to USB, HDD, she can create bootable disks herself, save in ISO format. In general, an advanced program.
You can download it from torrents, from the official site, from our site.
P.S. UltraISO shareware product, you need to buy it later if you like it. By the way, the recorded disc can be checked whether it will open in Explorer or not.
3. Change the computer boot order
If you have already set the boot order from CD-ROM (DVD-ROM) first, or you know how, feel free to skip this step.
There are 2 ways to change the boot order of your computer:
3.1 BIOS
The BIOS of any computer has options for choosing the sequence to boot the system. If these options are not automatically displayed when you turn on the computer, press the F2 or Del buttons - they may differ depending on the model and build of your BIOS.
In the BIOS, you do not need to go to the BOOT section and select the first CD / DVD boot device in the Boot Sequence.
Save the settings and exit (SAVE AND EXIT)
3.2 without BIOS
Most modern computers have the ability to assign boot order without going into BIOS. To do this, use the quick boot menu, which is invoked by pressing a special key immediately after turning on the computer (for example, F10, F12 or even F8 - depending on the motherboard model).
Usually, when booting, the BIOS itself prompts on the screen which key to press.
P.S. The disc must be inserted into the drive.
We have a variety of programs to choose from that reset Windows passwords.
Password Reset v3.0 is enough for us. If it doesn't work, you can try others.
- Select a user with a forgotten password, click OK. Program ask if you are sure of your desires, we answer YES! (OK)
- Next, it will ask whether to repeat (OK) or reboot (Reboot) the computer?
- We repeat how many users need to be cleared of passwords and restart the computer.
- Confirming the reboot @Yes
- Remove the disk from the drive and click OK
5. Verification
As soon as Windows boots up, it will ask which user to select. Windows will not ask you for a password.
If all is well, remember to set a new password for your user.
P.S. in the password, use capital letters, numbers, and even better, special characters- * - + - \u003d /? ...
P.P.S. phrases (rarely used) written in the English layout can be used as a password. For example, "Saint Bagheera1002" -\u003e "Cdznfz
6. What to do if
failed to reset Windows password
Go to step 4 and try a different program.
windows stopped loading
Eject all drives and USB. Set boot from HDD / SATA / SSD in BIOS. As a last resort, start Windows recovery or call the wizard.
everything went wrong
Call the wizard, clearly explaining the problem.
Passwords are like underwear. They should be changed frequently (although not every day). Never share them with other people. Don't show them to anyone (no reminder stickers!). And they should be purely intimate. Sorry, I meant to say that they must be shrouded in mystery. In other words, your password should be completely incomprehensible to others. Pcmag.ru advice
