How to recover or reset a Windows user password. Instructions and all methods. How to easily reset a forgotten password on any version of Windows

We remind you that attempts to repeat the author’s actions may lead to loss of warranty on the equipment and even to its failure. The material is provided for informational purposes only. If you are going to reproduce the steps described below, we strongly advise you to carefully read the article to the end at least once. The editors of 3DNews do not bear any responsibility for any possible consequences.

Windows has long used the SAM system to store and manage all user passwords. All information in it is well protected, so in order to find out the password, you will have to spend a lot of time and resources, especially if it is quite complex. Most often, however, there is no need to find out the password at all - just reset it or change it. Several utilities have been developed for this, one of which we will use. Another important point- it is obvious that when the OS is running, it will not allow you to just get into the password storage. Therefore, you need to make sure that your computer supports booting from a CD/DVD or USB media in order to launch the necessary utilities.

The most famous of them is Offline NT Password and Registry editor, which can work with passwords and the registry of Windows XP/Vista/7. Download the USB or CD version of the utility, burn the downloaded image to disk, or use our tips for creating a multiboot flash drive. The utility does not have a graphical interface, but you shouldn’t be afraid of this - everything in it is quite simple and clear. In addition, the desired option is often offered by default, so you only need to press the Enter key.

Boot from removable media Offline NT Password and Registry editor. You are unlikely to need additional boot options, but in some cases you will have to empirically select those that will help the utility start. The next step is to select the partition number on which Windows is installed. You will have to navigate first of all by its size. In principle, until the very last moment the program does not make any changes to Windows, so in case of an error, you can simply start the password reset procedure again.

Then the utility will ask you to specify the path to the folder where the SAM files are located (in fact, this is a registry hive). The default is X:/Windows/System32/config, this is what the program offers at the beginning. Then you need to select the first item (Password reset), since we are going to reset the password.

Then everything is simple. Select the first item (Edit user data and password) and enter the user name or identifier in the format 0xabcd, Where abcd is the RID listed in the first column. RID is useful if the username is not displayed correctly or cannot be entered. For example, when using Cyrillic.

All that remains is to specify item 1 (password reset) or 2 (password change) for the selected user. Exit password editing mode by entering exclamation mark and pressing Enter.

Everything is almost ready. Enter q, press Enter, and then agree to the changes by entering y and pressing Enter again. We refuse to continue working in Offline NT Password and Registry editor ( n), remove the flash drive or CD and press the treasured combination Alt+Ctrl+Del to reboot. Done - the password is reset!

This was an easy way to reset your Windows 7 password. There shouldn't be any difficulties with it. You just need to be careful and careful. Problems can only arise if the necessary drivers for working with the hard drive are missing. Then you will have to put them on a floppy disk (if, of course, you find a living representative of this almost extinct species and a working drive for it) or on a USB flash drive and at the first stage select the fetch additional drivers item.

For the second and third methods, you only need the Windows 7 installation disk and nothing else. A more complex option involves enabling the initially hidden “Administrator” account by editing the registry from the installation Windows environment 7. In the future, you will be able to log in to the system using this account and edit any other account in the OS. By default, “Administrator” does not have a password, which only plays into our hands.

So, boot from the installation disk and press Shift+F10 to open the command line, where we enter regedit and press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.

Selecting a section HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and in the menu select “File” → “Load hive...” (File → Load hive...). We need to open the SAM file, which is located in the folder \Windows\System32\config on the partition where Windows 7 is installed. When opening, you will be asked to enter the name of the hive to load - enter any.

Now you need to select a section HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\hive_name\SAM\Domains\Account\Users\000001F4 and double click on the key F. An editor will open in which you need to go to the first number in line 038 - this is 11. It must be changed to 10. Be careful and do not make a mistake - you only need to change it, without adding or deleting other numbers!

Now we need to select our bush HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\hive_name\ and in the menu select “File” → “Unload hive...” (File → Unload hive...), and then confirm unloading the hive.

That’s it, you can reboot by removing the pre-installation disk and log in under an administrator account. In the Windows Control Panel, under User Management, you can change the settings of another account. Including changing the password.

There is one last way left, the wrong one. Why wrong? Because we will deal with replacing system files, and this is a ignoble matter. What is the main idea? It's simple - the OS has the function of detecting sticky keys enabled by default. You've probably encountered it at least once, and if not, just quickly press Shift at least 5 times, and you will see this wonderful window:

This window belongs to a small auxiliary program sethc.exe, which is located in the Windows system directory. Moreover, it even starts on the welcome screen, when you are asked to select a user and enter a password. But it can be replaced with something useful. For example, cmd.exe. Naturally, not directly in the running OS, but by booting from the Windows 7 installation disk and pressing Shift+F10.

You need to start by identifying the drive letter on which Windows is installed. The easiest thing is to simply view the contents of the root partition with the command dir. C: will most likely be seen as D:, but not necessarily.

Having decided on the volume letter, we perform two simple commands— copy one original file just in case sethc.exe to the root of the disk or wherever you like, and change the second one to cmd.exe.

Copy d:\windows\system32\sethc.exe d:\copy d:\windows\system32\cmd.exe d:\windows\system32\sethc.exe

We reboot, quickly press the Shift key (or Ctrl, or Alt) several times and observe the command line window. You need to enter another command in it, substituting the name of the desired user and a new password accordingly. Other options for this command can be found in the official help.

Net user username new password

If you want to return everything to normal, you need to boot from the installation disk again, open the console and run the command:

Copy d:\sethc.exe d:\windows\system32\sethc.exe

However, you don’t have to restore anything, but leave this little trick in the system just in case. In addition to the methods listed above, there are many other methods for resetting or recovering a password in Windows, but we will not consider them now. Once again we urge our readers to be attentive and careful when working with the internals of the OS, and even better not to bring the situation to a “surgical” intervention in SAM. Good luck restoring access to your accounts!

Many users, in order to protect their information from prying eyes, set an administrator password for their Windows account. Some people, for various reasons, forget the set security code and to reset windows password carry out the procedure of reinstalling the entire system. And as you know, this matter takes a relatively long time.

There may also be problems with saving the necessary files, because we cannot log into the system, and when installing Windows, as we know, the local disk on which the operating system will be installed must be formatted. Well, of course, you can always find a simpler solution to the problem, this is exactly what will be discussed in this article and you will learn how reset password in windows 7 without resorting to reinstallation.

The only complication is that we will need an installation disk or flash drive to work on the command line. If you don't have either of these on hand, you can always use your neighbor's computer to download the image and burn it to a disk or flash drive.

How to reset windows 7 password if it is forgotten

A loophole for resetting password protection in Windows 7 turned out to be the Sticky Keys mode, which is caused by pressing a key five times Shift, This is exactly what will help us bypass the security code we have forgotten. The essence of the procedure is that when you call the sticky mode, a command line window will open in which we will need to work. Read below on how to do this.

First you need to boot from the installation disk or flash drive. In the first window, click next.

In the next window we are interested in the System Restore item, click on it.

If you have several operating systems installed, the list will show all available ones, select the one you need and move on.

In the System Recovery Options window, open the Command Prompt.

Enter the command:

copy D:\Windows\System32\sethc.exe D:\ and press enter.

sethc.exe- a file that causes sticky mode by pressing the key five times shift.

Using this command, this file is copied to the root of the disk (D:\) (in the system it is the drive (C:\)).

copy D:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe D:\Windows\System32\sethc.exe

cmd.exe- the file responsible for calling the command line.

With this command we replace the file sethc.exe with cmd.exe. Confirm changes by entering a key "y".

In the password entry window, call the command line by pressing the key five times shift.

Enter the command: net user Andrey 54321 and confirm it by pressing enter.

net user - user selection function.
Andrey - account name (enter yours).
54321 is the new password.

After successfully completing the procedure, enter the changed password and rejoice.

Replace the command line back with Sticky Keys

If you are not interested in the sticky mode, then you can leave everything as is. To return to calling this mode, read on.

As you can see in the picture below, using the commands entered above, the file sethc.exe moved to the root of the disk. And in the system folder system32, it has been replaced by the command line. Now we need to move it back. You can try just moving it to system32 and delete the false file located there. But it may not be possible to do this due to insufficient rights. Therefore, we will use the command line.

Open the start menu and enter in the search cmd and run the found file as administrator .

Enter the command:

copy C:\sethc.exe C:\Windows\System32\sethc.exe

Press enter and confirm with the " key" y". If everything was done correctly when pressing the key five times shift again the sticking mode will open .

ABOUTGive your opinion about this article, and of course, ask your questions if something suddenly goes wrong for you.

Thank you for your attention!

Note. This method can be used in Windows 8 and later, but only if the account Not associated with a Microsoft account (in this situation there is an easier way).

Stage #1 - Setting up the command line to start before the Windows login screen

Stage No. 2 - Reset your password or create a new user and log in

After rebooting, continue to log into Windows 7 normally. Before logging in, you will see a command prompt window.

Password reset

To reset your password, enter the following command and confirm its execution with the key Enter:

Net user username new password

Important! If your username or password contains spaces, enter them in " in quotation marks " .

In the picture below for the user Adm7 password is set tL942G8dWp.

If you have forgotten your account name, enter the command net user without parameters to display all available accounts.

Create a new account

If you don't have any administrator accounts, you can easily create one. To do this, enter the commands below sequentially, pressing the key after each Enter.

For Russian(localized) Windows:

Net user username password /add net localgroup Administrators username /add net localgroup Users username /delete

For English Windows:

Net user username password /add net localgroup Administrators username /add net localgroup Users username /delete

The commands sequentially perform the following actions:

Creating a new user.
Adding a user to a group Administrators (Administrators).
Removing a user from a group Users (Users).

If you want to set the password to never expire for all accounts, enter the following command at the end:

Net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited

When you finish typing, close the Command Prompt window.

Login

You now have an account with administrator rights and a new password. Simply select a user and log in to Windows:

How does this work?

To change user settings, you must have access to the Windows Control Panel or Command Prompt running with administrator rights from Windows. Since login is blocked, changes must be made before login.

To do this, at the first stage we enter the registry editor of the recovery environment and load a part of the registry (hive) of the installed Windows 7 into it. Using the parameter SetupType we indicate that before the next login to Windows, you must execute the command from the parameter CmdLine, and in CmdLine specify the command line (cmd.exe). These options are originally intended to perform administrative tasks during silent Windows installation, but we use them for our own purposes. After this, the registry hive is unloaded and the computer is sent to reboot. Then everything is simple - in the command line window that appears, we perform the necessary operations with users and log into Windows.

Enjoy using it!

How many times have you forgotten your passwords for a coded door at the entrance of a friend, your e-mail or an account in some VKontakte? But if in this case services and recovery services could help you, then in the case when you forget your password from your computer, only specialists will help you... If your hands “grow out of the right place", then you can try to do something yourself. The easiest way out of this situation is to reset the Windows 7 administrator password.

Options

There are several ways to solve this problem. Today we will talk about resetting the administrator password, which can be done with direct access to the computer, so these tips will not be useful to you for hacking someone else’s PC or server.

Mechanical.
Using the created software.
Using the distribution operating system.

Any of these options is equally good and bad at the same time. Some of them are larger and better suited for laptops, while others are ideal for a desktop computer. In addition, passwords are different, so if you protected your computer with a password using BIOS, even now it is not completely safe and there are ways to overcome this protection of a stationary personal computer. However, this method will not help you in the case of a laptop, because simply disassembling and putting it back together in working order is very difficult task, let alone making any changes.

Via BIOS

To immediately dot all the i's, it is worth saying that resetting the Windows 7 administrator password through the BIOS is not possible. Some concepts should be separated. You will not be able to reset the passwords on the user account by any operations in the BIOS, but if you have completely denied access to the computer using the I/O system and have forgotten the password, then here are a couple of tips for you.

It should be immediately noted that these methods are quite dangerous for your computer and work with 100% reliability only on stationary PCs. Yes, and these tricks can only be done with direct access to the system unit.

So, a quick reset of the Windows 7 administrator password is carried out as follows. Unscrew the cover of the PC system unit, having previously disconnected it from the power supply, and find a coin-cell battery on the motherboard. You should remove it for a few seconds and then put it back in place. This way, you will reset all temporary BIOS settings on your computer, including the password.

Second method

Also, resetting the Windows 7 administrator password set in the BIOS can be done a little differently. You will need the instructions from your motherboard. In the diagram you need to find a special jumper with which you can reset the BIOS settings. The jumper looks like a pair of exposed contacts. In order to reset the password, you will have to change the jumper on the jumper and turn on the computer. It will not start, but all settings will be set to default. Remove the jumper and turn on the PC again. When you first boot, you will be thrown into the BIOS control panel. Don't touch anything, just press the exit button and save your existing settings.

With disk

It is worth noting that if you have set a password for the user, then simply removing the battery is not enough. If you still have the operating system distribution, then you can use the following couple of tricks to reset the Windows 7 local administrator password.

So, first, remember the process of installing your OS. If you did it yourself, then at some point you should have been asked if you wanted to set a password for the “admin panel”. This entry is usually inactive and hidden from prying eyes, and users work on an account with extended rights. If you lose your account password, the administrator can always delete it himself. But what kind of “administrator” can we talk about? home computer? Therefore, you have to use the system administrator user account, which is installed on the system by default.

To launch it, do the following. Insert the installation disk and on the first welcome screen press the combination “Shift+F10”. This will allow us to bring up the command line. Next, we need to launch the registry editor with the “regedit” command. After this, we perform the following manipulations in the editor.

Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and click "File" - "Load hive".
Find the SAM file in the Windows folder - Swstem32 - config.
In the new branch that appears, go to the folder 000001F4. It is located in SAM - Domains - Account - Users. The "F" parameter needs to be changed.
Double click on it. We are interested in line 0038. In it we need to change the number located in the very first column. "11" -> "10".
We exit and save.
Select the root folder of our branch and click the “File” menu button, then “Unload hive”.

After all the manipulations have been completed, you can restart the computer. Now you can log into your administrator account and reset your Windows 7 administrator password manually using operating system tools.

Another option

There are still ways to log into a password-protected account. The fact is that you can reset the Windows 7 administrator password directly from the console running as an administrator. Now you will be offered enough the hard way, but allowing you to leave a small loophole for the future.

Perhaps you have come across a program that is responsible for sticky keys? When you press "Shift" or "Alt" many times in a row, you will receive a message asking you to turn off sticky. The fact is that this function also works in the user selection menu when we just turned on the computer. So if we replace it with something useful, we could benefit from it. For example, calling the command line.

To do this, repeat the steps in the previous paragraph and enter the operating system installation menu. Launch the command line. By default, your operating system should be installed on volume "C:\". If not, just replace it with the desired letter. After launching the line, enter a sequence of commands.

"Copy C:\windows\system32\sethc.exe C:\" - a copy of the file with the code that reacts to sticking is created.
"Copy C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe C:\windows\system32\sethc.exe" - copy the contents of the file that launches the command line to the sticky file.

After entering the last command, you must restart your personal computer (laptop). In the user selection menu, when you are asked to enter a password, we activate the sticky function by quickly pressing a few keys. The command line will open, and enter the command “net user UserName NewPassword”. As you might guess, instead of UserName you need to specify your user name, and instead of the second parameter, a new password. After this, you will be able to log into your account on your personal computer. If you want to return everything to its place, you can turn on the command line from Windows and enter “copy C:\sethc.exe C:\windows\system32\sethc.exe”.

But how to reset the Windows 7 administrator password without a disk?

Utility

If the operating system distribution kit is missing, it is always possible to reset the password using a special utility. You will need a program to reset the Windows 7 administrator password. For example, Offline NT Password and Registry Editor. We write it to a disk or flash drive and restart the computer, choosing to boot from external media. Resetting the Windows 7 administrator password from a flash drive is quite easy to learn if you can read and know English. So let's begin.

After launch, a table with hard disks will appear in front of you. Enter the number of the one on which the OS is installed.
Determine the path to the SAM accounts file. "C:/Windows/System32/config".
Enter "1" twice in a row.
We select the user we need in the table. The administrator password reset program only works with Latin, so if the name is not displayed correctly, you can enter its RID in the format 0xRID.
Once again enter "1".
The following is a sequence of commands: exit, save changes, do not continue.
Reboot the computer by pressing "control-alt-divide".

The Windows 7 administrator password reset program did its job. You can enter your "domain" on the computer.

Warning

Finally, it should be noted that any changes that you make to your computer when trying to reset the Windows 7 administrator password, you do at your own discretion, and all responsibility falls on your shoulders. After them, most likely, not a single service will accept your computer under warranty. especially after opening the cover of the system unit. After all, it is very difficult to prove that you did something with the operating system, but the opened “seals” on the system unit will look very eloquent. This means you will have to pay specialists a round sum for quite simple steps. When following these instructions, be extremely careful, and if something is not clear, it is better to clarify or look for additional information.

Bottom line

We hope this article helped you with your problem, no matter which method you used, be it a remote battery or a super-sophisticated utility from an unknown manufacturer. The main problem An issue you may encounter is data security. Unfortunately, some information may well be lost during this process. Therefore, try to get it from friends or download a version of the operating system on LiveCD. Then you can simply save all the data that is important to you.

In this article, we did not consider the simplest but longest method - a complete reinstallation of the system. Unfortunately, sometimes there are situations in which it becomes completely impossible to access your computer, and reinstalling Windows becomes the only possible option.

How many times have you forgotten your passwords for a coded door at the entrance of a friend, your e-mail or an account in some VKontakte? But if in this case services and recovery services could help you, then in the case when you forget your password from your computer, only specialists will help you... If your hands are “growing from the right place,” then you can try to do something yourself. The easiest way out of this situation is to reset the Windows 7 administrator password.

Options

Mechanical.
Using the created software.
Using the operating system distribution.

Via BIOS

Second method

With disk

So, first, remember the process of installing your OS. If you did it yourself, then at some point you should have been asked if you wanted to set a password for the “admin panel”. This entry is usually inactive and hidden from prying eyes, and users work on an account with extended rights. If you lose your account password, the administrator can always delete it himself. But what kind of “administrator” can we talk about on a home computer? Therefore, you have to use the system administrator user account, which is installed on the system by default.

Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and click "File" - "Load hive".
Find the SAM file in the Windows folder - Swstem32 - config.
In the new branch that appears, go to the folder 000001F4. It is located in SAM - Domains - Account - Users. The "F" parameter needs to be changed.
Double click on it. We are interested in line 0038. In it we need to change the number located in the very first column. "11" -> "10".
We exit and save.
Select the root folder of our branch and click the “File” menu button, then “Unload hive”.

Another option

There are still ways to log into a password-protected account. The fact is that you can reset the Windows 7 administrator password directly from the console running as an administrator. Now you will be offered a rather complicated method, but one that allows you to leave a small loophole for the future.

"Copy C:\windows\system32\sethc.exe C:\" - a copy of the file with the code that reacts to sticking is created.
"Copy C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe C:\windows\system32\sethc.exe" - copy the contents of the file that launches the command line to the sticky file.

But how to reset the Windows 7 administrator password without a disk?

Utility

After launch, a table with hard disks will appear in front of you. Enter the number of the one on which the OS is installed.
Determine the path to the SAM accounts file. "C:/Windows/System32/config".
Enter "1" twice in a row.
We select the user we need in the table. The administrator password reset program only works with Latin, so if the name is not displayed correctly, you can enter its RID in the format 0xRID.
Once again enter "1".
The following is a sequence of commands: exit, save changes, do not continue.
Reboot the computer by pressing "control-alt-divide".

The Windows 7 administrator password reset program did its job. You can enter your "domain" on the computer.

Warning

Finally, it should be noted that any changes that you make to your computer when trying to reset the Windows 7 administrator password, you do at your own discretion, and all responsibility falls on your shoulders. After them, most likely, not a single service will accept your computer under warranty. especially after opening the cover of the system unit. After all, it is very difficult to prove that you did something with the operating system, but the opened “seals” on the system unit will look very eloquent. This means you will have to pay specialists a round sum for quite simple actions. When following these instructions, be extremely careful, and if something is not clear, it is better to clarify or look for additional information.

Bottom line

We hope this article helped you with your problem, no matter which method you used, be it a remote battery or a super-sophisticated utility from an unknown manufacturer. The main problem you may encounter is data security. Unfortunately, some information may well be lost during this process. Therefore, try to get it from friends or download a version of the operating system on LiveCD. Then you can simply save all the data that is important to you.