Changing user accounts, including changing passwords, is carried out in Windows through a special control panel applet. To start it, you need to log in to the system with administrator rights, but sometimes this is impossible - the password can be lost forever. In such cases, you can reset the administrator password when logging in, either using third-party programs, or by doing everything manually. The second method is described below.
Instructions
Step 1
To be able to reset the administrator password, you need to access the command line interface on the password screen when booting the OS. To do this, you must first boot without using the main system in order to make changes to the system registry. Use whatever option is available to you - an installation disc, a recovery disc, a second OS, LiveCDs, or Windows PE.
Step 2
If you are booting from an installation disc or a recovery disc, after the language selection window appears, click the "Next" button, select "System Restore". Click "Next" again and click on the "Command Prompt" link.
Step 3
From the CLI, start Registry Editor - type regedit and press Enter.
Step 4
Select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE line, open the File section in the editor's menu and select the Load Hive command.
Step 5
In the dialog box that opens, go to the system drive, open the folder where the OS is installed, and in it - the System32 directory. In this directory, find the System file (it does not have an extension), select it and click the "Open" button. You will be prompted to enter a name for the loaded hive - type, for example, killAdmin and click OK.
Step 6
In the registry editor, go to the Setup branch of the created hive - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / killAdmin / Setup. Double-click on the CmdLine parameter to open the editing dialog, type cmd.exe in the "Value" field and click OK. In the same way, set the value to 2 in the SetupType parameter.
Step 7
Select the downloaded and edited killAdmin hive and again expand the File section in the editor menu. This time, select the Unload Hive command and click Yes when the application prompts you to confirm the operation.
Step 8
Close Registry Editor, CLI and initiate a restart of the computer. Don't forget to remove the installation disc.
Step 9
Before entering the OS, a command line interface will appear - type the command net user, enter the administrator's name and a new password for him after another space after a space. The name should be enclosed in quotation marks if it also contains a space. If you do not remember the names of the computer users, type net user without additional parameters and press Enter - a complete list of users will appear on the screen.
Step 10
Then continue logging into the OS in the usual way - select the administrator icon and enter the password you just specified.
