Windows 7 password removal utility. Reset Windows password using bootable LiveCDs

Our forgetfulness often plays various unpleasant jokes on us. Forgetting a password for a program or for Windows is a completely common thing and happens to literally every second user. Especially with those of them who write down passwords not in a notebook, but on pieces of paper scattered everywhere, or even rely on their powerful and bottomless memory. And who is not familiar with the situation when the password for an account is forgotten? network resource- on some Facebook or Vkontakte.

Imagine that in this situation, valuable data or simply carefully organized software environment operating system Windows. Who wants to reinstall Windows and reinstall all the programs? There are no such individuals in nature. The decision, in in this case, performs . We will talk specifically about Windows 7, since approximately the same password reset procedures are valid for the G8. And these, whatever you say, are the most popular operating systems installed on the computers of hundreds of millions of users.

To begin with, we will discuss the most simple procedure reset using boot image Windows on a CD (like the common “LiveCD”) or bootable USB flash drive, similar in functionality. We also need a minimal understanding of the command line. Using these means we will try to remove existing password on behalf of the administrator. In conclusion, we will offer for consideration some other options for user action in the event of a forgotten password.

At the preparation stage

Preparing to reset your password in Windows 7 will involve one tricky procedure: we will change system program Sticky keys on the command processor.

The command processor - the cmd.exe file - is precisely the system utility that is responsible for providing the command line interface. To launch the console, you need to run this file. Replacing the sticking utility with command console Windows 7, we will be able to control the process of entering and changing the password.

Please note that we will need a proprietary installer of the “seven”, which includes administrator functions, such as “System Restore”. Some stripped-down versions of installation disks and flash drives do not contain administrator functionality. So, let's begin our preparatory steps for the reset:

copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\

Thus, we copy the keystroke handler to the root of the “C:” drive, that is, we create backup copy handler, which we need to remove and replace with the cmd.exe file. We do the replacement according to the command:

copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe

That's all the system administrator's preparations for resetting the password on Windows 7. The reset itself will be described in the next section.

We are struggling with authentication in the system

To remove authentication from the system, proceed as follows:

Remove from the system bootable media and log in through the normal Windows boot procedure.
When logging in, we will be asked to enter the password of the administrator or other registered user of the system.
Instead, press the Shift key five times. This will launch the command processor, which will allow us to remove forgotten password. In order to reset it and remove all information about previous authentication, type the following command:

net user Username New password

As you can see, it also allows you to remove the old username and assign a new one to it.

Everything is ready, you can log in with new credentials.

This seems to be the easiest way to reset your credentials using the console. All that remains is to “plant” the file sethc.exe that we moved in its place. Copy it back to the C:\Windows\System32 folder. There are alternatives to this procedure, which can be found here: http://www.3dnews.ru/623507.

Passwords help protect your account in operating systems from outside users. However, it also happens that they are forgotten, and it is not possible to get into the system from account I don’t have an administrator or installation media with me. In this case, you will have to reset the password using slightly non-standard methods.

Removing the password from Windows 7 without installation media

If you are unable to download a password reset disk for Windows 7, you can use one of the methods suggested below. Both involve solving a problem using system utilities. To do this, you do not need to download a reset disk Win password dows 7 or full system image. However, it is recommended to strictly follow the instructions, since both methods involve working with the interface "Consoles".

There is no need to try to reset your Windows 7 password using third-party software, as this will lead to certain problems.

Method 1: Command Line

This is the most versatile, simple and safe way change the password on Windows 7 without knowing the old one. If necessary, you can simply remove it later New Password from the operating system. To perform this method, you will need to be able to log into the OS interface, even from a guest account. Usually this is always there by default.

The Guest account has some limitations compared to the Administrator account. By default, they apply to making any changes to the OS, for example, installing/uninstalling programs, editing some documents, downloading content from the network. Restrictions on use "Command line" no by default.

Instructions for this method looks like this:

1. Press the key combination Win+R.
2. In the line that opens, enter cmd and click Enter.

1. Will start "Command line". First, you need to find out the number of users, their powers and logins in the operating system. To do this, enter the net user command and click Enter.

1. A list of all operating system users is displayed. You need to find the administrator account login. This will be easy to do if there are only two accounts in the OS.
2. Now write the command net user administrator_login new_password. Example command: net user Admin 123456. Press Enter.

After applying the command, restart your computer and log into the administrator account with a new password.

Method 2: Recovery Menu

This method can be dangerous, as it involves disconnecting the computer from power while it is running. However, a single use should not cause much harm.

The bottom line is this:

1. Restart your computer if it was turned on or turn it on if it was turned off.
2. When will it start Windows boot turn it off abruptly. For example, press the power button or unplug the power cable.
3. Then reconnect the power and turn on the PC.
4. Instead of standard Windows startup the screen should open "Windows Error Recovery", that is, recovery from an error.
5. You will be offered several options for starting the operating system. Select "Launch Startup Repair". In the Russian version it may be called "Run boot repair".

1. The system will begin loading. You may see a window asking for permission to perform a system restore ( "System Restore"). Cancel by clicking on "Cancel".

1. A recovery error message appears. Click on the item "View problem details".

1. Start text file with a description of the problem. Here you need to click on the item "File" V top menu. From the drop-down list, click on the item "Open".

Will open "Conductor" Windows with access to all system files. You need to go to the following path: C:\Windows\System32.
Here, find and rename one of these files utilman.exe or sethc.exe, adding the postscript bak or old to the name of one of them. If these files are not displayed in Explorer, then in the column "File Type" set the value "All files".
Now find the cmd.exe file. Copy it and paste it in the same directory.
Rename the copied file to "utilman" or "sethc". No need to rename the file to "utilman", if in step 10 you added a postscript to the file "sethc" and vice versa.
You can close "Notebook" and press "Finish". After this, the system will reboot.
Wait for the starter to load Windows screen and click on the icon « Accessibility» , if you renamed the file to "utilman". If you renamed it to "sethc", then you will need to press the key five times Shift.

This way you will have access to "Command line" without having any access to the system. In the interface "Consoles" you will have to do the following:

1. If you do not know the exact name of the administrator account, then enter the net user command. It will display all data regarding system users, including their status.

1. Now write this command: net user Administrator account name new password. Example command, net user Admin 123456. Press Enter.

Restart your computer and try logging in with the new password you set.

The methods discussed above help you reset your password on Windows 7 without using a disk with an OS image. However, it is recommended to create a system recovery image on a flash drive (installation disk) and perform a reset through it.

In Windows 8, 7 and 10, you can protect your account. This way no stranger will enter there. But what if you forgot your password? Or did you purchase a computer that already has an account? In Win, you cannot restore your account using email. The code will not be sent via SMS. But there is no need to format the disk. Reset Windows password 7 via a flash drive - this is the solution to the problem.

If you forgot your Windows password, no problem.

Suitable for this UltraISO program. You can use another utility if you wish.
Find it online and download it. The application is paid. But there is a trial version.
Insert the drive.
Launch the program.
"File - Open". Select ISO file.
Go to the “Boot” menu and click on “Burn Hard Disk Image”.
In the "DiskDrive" section, select USB storage device.
Next, you can format it if you haven’t done so before. The flash drive must be in
"FAT32".
Click on “Record”. The system will warn you that all data from the drive will be deleted. Confirm the action.
Wait while the files are copied.

Replacing files

To remove a Windows 10, 8 or 7 password, enter recovery mode, and through it, enter the command line.

Set in BIOS external storage to boot priority.
Once launched, the installation wizard will open.
Select a language.
Click on "System Restore". Do not click on "Install".
A list of OSes will appear. Mark the one for which you cannot remember the code.
In recovery options, click on “Command Prompt”. Now you see white font on a black background.
Create a backup copy of “Utilman.exe” - enter “copy [System drive]:\Windows\system32\sethc.exe [System drive]:\File”. The file will be copied to the "File" folder.
Now replace it with “copy [System-drive]:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe [System-drive]:\Windows\System32\Utilman.exe”.
The system will ask you to confirm the action. Write "Y" if you agree.
Once the file has copied, click Reboot and remove the drive.
In BIOS, return to the previous settings. Now you can start the OS.

Reset

When you log into your account, open “Accessibility” (the button at the bottom left).
But the command line will start.
To reset your Windows password, enter “net user [Username] [New Code].” If there is a space in the name or cipher, enclose it in quotation marks.
If you want to remove the code, put two quotes without any characters between them.
Restart your computer again and calmly log into your account.
Return the "Utilman.exe" file. Boot from the flash drive again, open recovery mode and command prompt. Write in it “move [System drive]:\File\Utilman.exe [System drive]:\Windows\System32\Utilman.exe”

If you cannot log into your Win account, this does not mean that you have lost all user data. In Windows XP, 7, 8, 10, resetting a password from a flash drive is a very simple task. Although this has its downsides. It turns out that anyone can log into the account. Protect your personal information in several ways - not just with the code in your account.

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 Windows registry 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 GUI, but you shouldn’t be afraid of this - everything in it is quite simple and understandable. 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 options downloads, but in some cases you will have to empirically select those that will help the utility start. On next stage you need 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 further work 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 there is no necessary drivers to work with hard drive. 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, let's boot from 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 prompted 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 panel Windows management in the user management section 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'll do the substitution system files, and this is an 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 after booting from the installation Windows disk 7 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 execute two simple commands - copy one just in case original file 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

Reboot, quickly press several times Shift key(or Ctrl, or Alt) and observe the window with command line. 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!

Friends, hello everyone! In this article we will talk about how to reset the password on Windows 7 via a 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 discussed in this article is not standard, where you need to know special operators and enter them correctly using . One will be applied here free program and the neighbor's computer.

The first thing you need to do is download a utility called Recover My Password from the official website at this link. It is with its help that it will be created to reset the Win 7 password. Fortunately, it is small in size:

Then, of course, we install and launch. In the window that opens, click on the single large 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 won’t change anything; the default setting will allow us to do this on everything Windows family except for the 10th:

After that, select the desired flash drive:

A message appears indicating that all data on the USB storage device 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. When it’s finished, select the “Finish” button at the bottom:

Okay, now let's see how much space the program needs to create such a flash drive for resetting the password? And as it turned out, quite a bit:

Now all that remains is to set it in BIOS and try to use our wonderful program in practice. Well, so be it. We boot from it and select the item indicated in the picture below:

At the next step, we check whether the “Reset” option is indicated in the line Windows Password" and click the "Next" button below:

The program will ask about non-commercial purposes of use. Let's say "Yes":

Then the version of the installed operating system will be automatically detected Windows systems:

And here it is, the final stage. A list will open in which you should select the name of the administrator account where you need to reset the password. After that, click “Next”:

Well, that's it, it's done. All that remains is to restart the computer and log in calmly. So now we can safely say that you know how to reset your Windows 7 password.

But, unfortunately, this trick didn’t work on Win 10. I couldn't this program 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.