Forgot Windows password

Question

Possible Duplicate:
What can I do if I forgot my Windows password?

I've forgot a Windows 7 Pro password. My situation is as follows:

one Windows computer, no CD/DVD
one Mac with Windows 8 and Windows XP on Parallels
one USB dongle with only 1GB of space
installation disks from Windows
ISO from microsoft.com

Do you think I'm toast? Any idea how I might get to erase my forgotten password?

Can you buy an external CD drive? Can you format the flash drive? Can you set up a PXE server? — SLaks, Jan 21 '13 at 16:39
I could, but I wouldn't like to do it, I can format the flash drive of course. — sathia, Jan 21 '13 at 16:40
Sign on with the administrator password you most certainly set up and then sealed in an envelope and placed in a safe place. — Daniel R Hicks, Jan 21 '13 at 17:22

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 12 '20 at 13:48

4

Boot off USB and use a password reset disk.

This is a utility to reset the password of any user that has a valid local account on your Windows system.

Supports all Windows from NT3.5 to Win7, also 64 bit and also the Server versions (like 2003 and 2008)

You do not need to know the old password to set a new one.

It works offline, that is, you have to shutdown your computer and boot off a CD or USB disk to do the password reset.

Will detect and offer to unlock locked or disabled out user accounts! There is also a registry editor and other registry utilities that works under linux/unix, and can be used for other things than password editing.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 13:48

Community

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answered Jan 21 '13 at 16:40

Bali C

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sorry, I wasn't clear enough. the dongle is 1GB in size and I can format it – sathia Jan 21 '13 at 16:45
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Then you can do this if you format it :) – Bali C Jan 21 '13 at 16:46
will do in a few hours and I'll post the results here. thanks – sathia Jan 21 '13 at 16:53
He can do this only if his motherboard supports booting from USB. A lot of cheaper models won't allow it. – Simkill Jan 21 '13 at 16:54

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 21 '13 at 17:39

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There used to be a way in XP to start an install and then cancel out, thereby resetting the Administrator password. Not sure if it's still possible in Windows 7. This site has 12 ways to tackle this. I've read through them and they seem to make sense:

How to reset the Windows administrator password

edited Jan 21 '13 at 17:39

slhck

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answered Jan 21 '13 at 16:54

Fred Lackey

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Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, [it would be preferable](http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/8259) to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. – slhck Jan 21 '13 at 17:39

Forgot Windows password

2 Answers2