I recently received an in person computer repair customer. There request was pretty typical. They wanted me to try to reset their Microsoft windows password.
This is a return customer of mine. They brought me a Gateway all in one computer with Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. This blog post is NOT written for hackers or thugs that stole a computer and now need access to it.
This blog post was written for real people not able to login to their Microsoft Windows account. You will need either a CD-ROM or USB flash drive. Then you will need to download the most recent version of offline Windows password & registry editor. This is my preferred Windows operating system password reset utility.
Amazingly, this software is free. As of the time of this blog post creation, version 140201 is the most recent one available. Once you download this software, which is eighteen megabytes in size, to your computer, you will then need to decompress this zip file.
Now you will have access to the 140201.iso file. You can then burn this .iso to a boot CD-ROM or USB flash drive. This tool is designed for both x86 32 bit and x64 64 bit operating systems. This windows password reset and recovery tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows 8, Microsoft Windows 8.1, and Microsoft Windows 10 operating systems.
This utility is actually a Linux program. I am loving the irony here. Anyways, you boot off your CD-ROM or USB flash drive that you just created.
On some computers you may need to adjust UEFI or SATA controller types. For example the first time I had to switch from SATA IDE from SATA AHCI in the basic input output system. Also, you may have to change the boot order in your computer basic input output system.
You can always choose to start your computers boot menu. For example Dell and Gateway computers have an F12 boot menu where you can pick which device to boot from. You will be present with a Linux “boot:” prompt.
For most instances you do NOT need to perform anything else. Just let the Linux operating system boot. You will be presented with any Microsoft Windows partitions. Look for one that is labeled “BOOT”.
For example:
/dev/sda1 BOOT
Most likely this is the partition where your passwords are saved. If you have more than one partition choose the BOOT partition, by either hitting enter or choosing a number that corresponds with it.
Now you select the registry path which is normally:
WINDOWS/system32/config
Now choose option 1 which is “password reset (sam)”. You will actually be blanking your Microsoft windows user password. Then you will choose 1 “Edit user data and passwords”.
Now, look through the list of usernames. For example:
01f4 Administrator ADMIN
02c7 pamela
You will need to enter the hexadecimal number in the very first left hand column to choose that user. For example type in the following for pamela:
02c7
Hit the enter key after typing in 02c7. Now you choose option 1 “Clear (blank) user password”. You should receive a “Password cleared!” message.
Now type in q or hit enter. You will be asked if there is something to save. Type in Y to save your changes.
You can now press Ctrl Alt Delete to restart your computer. This free offline windows password reset tool is fool proof. This tool almost always works on the first try, at least for me.
You should now be able to login to your Microsoft windows account without a password. In this case you would click on pamela an viola you have now learned now to reset your Microsoft windows password.
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