• Windows forgot the administrator password. What to do if you forgot your computer login password. How to hack and reset Windows login password. Using Offline NT Password and Registry editor

    Modern Windows security features help protect personal data stored on a personal computer or laptop from unwanted users. However, how can the owner of the computer unlock a laptop if he has forgotten his account password? As a last resort, you can always reinstall the operating system, but there are easier ways to recover or crack a lost password. This login is much faster, since it does not require re-installing Windows and configuring numerous software.

    This article discusses two simple ways to recover your password and unlock your Windows system. The first uses safe mode login as administrator using the BIOS, followed by changing the current password for the specified user.

    The second method is carried out using specialized account hacking software.

    The most trivial and easiest way to log into the system if you have forgotten your account password is through safe mode. You can completely remove the laptop password or change it to a simpler one. In this case, it is completely unnecessary to know the old one.

    If you want to perform this operation, you need to do the following:


    How to remove a user's password in an administrator account

    In diagnostic mode, you can work on a laptop almost like a regular OS. However, many familiar functions will not be here. The first thing that will catch your eye is the lack of a driver for the graphics adapter. Here the user can remove the password he forgot as an administrator. To do this you need to do the following:


    Administrator Command Line

    Similar actions can be done a little faster if the lack of a graphical interface does not bother you. A console running on an administrator account can help with this. You need to do the following:


    The data will be changed, after which you can restart the laptop and log into the operating system.

    Ophcrack utility

    This software is designed to crack lost passwords. With its help you can easily unlock access to the system. You can run Ophcrack on a variety of platforms and as a LiveCD. This can be useful if you only have one account and you can't log in to it right now.

    You can download the utility by following the link. This is the official website of the program developer. Choose the regular version or LiveCD.

    The LiveCD image must be installed on a bootable USB flash drive (for example, using the UltraISO utility). After this, you need to restart your computer, go into the BIOS settings and select boot from a flash drive.

    Resetting a forgotten Windows password is not that difficult. There are several ways. The two least complex ones will be described here.

    First way

    You will need a Windows 7 operating system installation disc.
    You need to boot from disk. (When booting the computer, immediately after turning it on, you need to go to the boot menu. To do this, press F8 or F12).
    Once the Windows installation screen has loaded, click next in the language selection menu, then the system recovery button located at the bottom left of the screen with the Windows logo. In the window that appears, select Use recovery tools and click next. Various recovery tools will be offered; you need to select “command line”.
    You need to replace the Sticky Keys utility with the command line.
    To do this, enter the following one by one on the command line:

    1) copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\
    (this is you creating a backup copy of the utility)
    2) copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe
    (replace the utility with the command line)

    A confirmation request will be issued, write Y and press enter.
    Restart your computer, boot from your hard drive.
    At the user selection screen, press the shift key five times. A command line will open in which you need to enter the following:

    net user user password

    Where user is the name of your user (if it is an administrator, then write admin. If the user name is in Russian letters, then write it that way. If it consists of two words, then you need to put them in quotes)
    Password - select your new password. (don't forget the main thing :))
    After you have entered everything, press enter and reboot.
    Now you need to return the utility file to its place.
    Boot from the installation disk, launch the command line and enter:

    (return the executable file to its place)
    To confirm, enter Y, press enter again.
    Reboot.
    That's all, enter a new password and you are in the system.

    Second way

    This method assumes that you have another computer from which you can create a bootable USB flash drive with a password reset utility.
    Creating a bootable USB flash drive with the utility:
    Download the utility called (version for flash card).

    Unpack the utility archive you downloaded into the root of the flash drive. Launch Command Prompt with administrator rights using the Win+R key combination and enter cmd, or find Command Prompt in the Start menu, right-click on it and select Run with administrator rights.
    Type the following at the command line:

    E is the letter of your flash card, if it is different, replace it with the desired one.
    (if it gives an error, remove the letters -ma from the command)
    Password reset:
    Boot the computer from the flash drive (F8 or F12 at boot - select the media from which to boot).
    The utility will start; it does not have a graphical interface, all information is displayed in text form.
    Press enter to launch it.
    Next, you need to select the partition in which your operating system is located. Enter the appropriate number and press enter (usually 1). Next, the program will find the path to the Windows system folder, confirm your choice by pressing enter. (should be Windows/System32/Config)
    Among the options offered by the utility, select password reset - enter the number 1 and press enter.
    Next, select number 1 and enter.

    The utility will display a list of all users. Find the user for whom you want to reset the password. If the username is in Russian, it will be displayed with strange characters.
    You need to enter the username (if it is in English) or the RID of this user (if the name is in Russian).
    The user RID is displayed next to each user, in a separate column located to the left of the name.

    Example:
    Username - admin
    RID - 0x03e8

    (the administrator account, in the Russian version of Windows, has the name 4<8=8AB@0B>@ ; >ABL is a guest)
    It would be better to enter the RID, since this eliminates errors.
    Enter what you need and press enter.
    The utility will give you 4 options:
    1) reset user password.
    2) changing the user password (does not work on Win7).
    3) elevate the user's rights to administrator.
    4) unblock the user.
    need the first one - clear user password.
    Again, enter the number 1 and press enter.
    The program will display the message password cleared, which means the password has been reset.
    Now enter an exclamation point on your keyboard! and press enter.
    Next, to exit the program, you need to enter the letter q
    enter again
    Save changes by entering the letter Y
    Enter again.
    And finally, enter the letter N
    Then enter
    Restart your computer using the keys ctrl+alt+del.
    Your account password has been reset.

    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

    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.

    1. Mechanical.
    2. Using the created software.
    3. Using the operating system distribution.

    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 by password-protecting it 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 a very difficult task, not to mention 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 passwords on a user account using 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 first 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 try a couple of the following 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 on a 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.

    1. Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and click "File" - "Load hive".
    2. Find the SAM file in the Windows folder - Swstem32 - config.
    3. 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.
    4. 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".
    5. We exit and save.
    6. 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 a rather complicated method, but one that allows 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.

    1. "Copy C:\windows\system32\sethc.exe C:\" - a copy of the file with the code that reacts to sticking is created.
    2. "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.

    1. After launch, a table with hard drives will appear in front of you. Enter the number of the one on which the OS is installed.
    2. Determine the path to the SAM accounts file. "C:/Windows/System32/config".
    3. Enter "1" twice in a row.
    4. 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.
    5. Once again enter "1".
    6. Next is the sequence of commands: exit, save changes, do not continue working.
    7. 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, no 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 what 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.

    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.

    This guide will tell you what to do if you forgot your Windows XP password and how to solve this problem without reinstalling the operating system. We'll also look at other possible password issues. The Windows 10 and Windows 7 operating systems have improved security capabilities compared to the earlier Windows XP/2000 systems.

    By the way, your PC may have one of the most commonly used passwords installed; for a complete list of popular passwords, see -.

    The latest versions of Windows use a more effective password system designed for business use to ensure that no one without the necessary permissions can access information on your computer. This is a double-edged sword. Most users forget some important password at least once. And then the user/owner of the information becomes the “enemy without access rights” for his computer.

    Naturally, for every security method there is a way to bypass it, especially if you have physical access to the computer.

    In this article, we will look at various methods of protecting your computer with a password and how to bypass them. We won't start with user account passwords, but with equally important passwords, such as BIOS passwords.

    How to "bypass" the BIOS password?

    BIOS password- one of the oldest methods of protecting a computer from unauthorized access and one of the most common. Why? This is one of the most effective means if the user does not have access to the system unit. Otherwise, it is the same as locking your house with many locks and leaving the window open.

    The default BIOS settings on all motherboards do not store password information. So all you need to do to remove the BIOS password is simply reset the current settings, restoring the default configuration. But remember that resetting the current BIOS settings will destroy not only the password, but also all the settings that you set yourself.

    There are two ways to reset BIOS settings. Most motherboards have a special jumper for clearing CMOS (the memory in which BIOS settings are stored). Usually this jumper is located near the battery on the motherboard, but to be completely sure, it is advisable to refer to the instructions from the motherboard. On some motherboards, instead of a jumper, there are simply two contacts that need to be closed with a metal object, such as a screwdriver, to reset the CMOS.

    If your board has a jumper, then to clear CMOS, turn off the computer, install the jumper so that it closes the jumper contacts, and press the computer power button. Your computer will not boot, but your CMOS settings will be reset. Remove the jumper and turn on the computer again. You will most likely see a screen asking you to press F1 to set the BIOS settings. If you are happy with the default settings, press F1 and select ‘Save and exit’ from the BIOS menu. After this, the computer will boot as usual, except for the BIOS password.

    If you don't know where the required jumper is located on your board or if it doesn't exist at all, which is quite possible, you'll have to go a different route. Each motherboard has a battery that powers the CMOS memory, allowing it to store information. As a rule, this is a standard CR2032 battery.

    To clear CMOS, turn off the computer and remove the battery (you may need a thin screwdriver). After 5-10 minutes, replace the battery and turn on the computer. The BIOS will be set to default settings and there will be no password. To continue booting, you will need to press the F1 key, and if you are satisfied with the default settings, select the ‘Save and exit’ item in the BIOS menu that appears.

    As you can see, all this is very simple on a desktop computer, but with a laptop, the BIOS password can become a serious problem. Due to the frequent theft of laptop computers, manufacturers have made it almost impossible to gain access without passing the password. So, if you have forgotten your laptop's BIOS password, most likely you will have to contact the manufacturer's service center.

    What to do if you forgot your Windows password?

    If circumstances have developed in such a way that you have forgotten your Windows password, then we recommend that you reset it using the built-in account called Administrator. This is done in safe mode, while booting or rebooting your PC.

    To restore access to your computer, you will just need to press F8 and in the menu that has already opened, in which you will be presented with some additional options for loading your operating system, you will have to select the aforementioned “Safe Mode”. Next, you will need to select a built-in account, which, by the way, by default, cannot be protected by any password.

    If you did everything correctly, since you strictly followed the above sequence of actions, then while still on the Desktop, you should see a window with a message that Windows is running in the “Safe Mode” you need, which is as simplified as possible. You will need to click “Yes” and go to Control Panel - User Accounts, where there is an icon for the account for which you want to reset the password. On the left, you must select “Change Password” and in the appropriate window enter and then confirm a new password. Ultimately, you will need to restart your PC for the above changes to take effect.

    How to crack Windows password on a computer or laptop?

    In order to do this, you will have to follow the following sequence of actions:

    1. Prepare a CD or flash drive on which a special set of recovery programs designed to restore Windows should be recorded. You will need to insert it into the drive or into the appropriate port during the subsequent reboot of the computer. You can prepare this package of resuscitation programs yourself by downloading programs intended for separating, saving and restoring data, or you can download some ready-made RBCD 10.0, for example;
    2. When starting the PC, in order to enter the BIOS, press the “DELETE” button. There we will need to change the installation priority and assign the computer to boot from the CD-ROM. After this we visit our boot disk in the drive and restart the PC;
    3. Having entered the resuscitation disk, which should appear after the resuscitation program package has been downloaded, we must select the edited copy of Windows and go to the “System Restore” mode - the section that will be located at the very bottom of the page;
    4. We look for the command line and enter “regedit” there (we look for it in the dialog settings of the same window). We find and then select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE section, in which we need to select File, and then Load hive;
    5. Open the “SAM” file and select the section - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\hive_name\SAM\Domains\Account\Users\000001F4. Double-click on the F key located there and go to the very first value located in the line, which we will need to replace with the number 10;
    6. In the same section, select “File”, and then “Load Hive”. Click “Yes” to confirm unloading the bush. We close the registry editor, thus completing the installation process, take out the flash drive or disk and reboot the computer.

    How to find out your computer password?

    The question: how to crack a password on a computer still remains relevant. Unfortunately, it seems possible to actually find out the password from a computer only by choosing it correctly manually. Therefore, if you are not ready to spend several hours of your free time on this process, we strongly recommend that you simply reset it and come up with some new one.

    Again, it’s much easier to just reset the password and come up with a new one afterwards. However, if you specifically need to find out the password, we recommend that for these purposes you use a program called, from the image of which you will need to make a boot disk. Having correctly configured the BIOS boot from the drive and installed this program, immediately upon entering the Desktop, a window will open in which you can see user names, including the Administrator, as well as passwords for their accounts.

    When wondering what to do if you forgot the password from your own PC, it is not at all necessary to use the methods listed above to recover it. You can also reset your password in the Windows 7 operating system using the Net User command. To do this, while rebooting the PC you will need to press F8. Thus, you can open a Menu that allows you to make additional options for loading this operating system, in which you will need to select not just “Safe Mode,” but one that also supports the command line. While in it, you will need to select the built-in Administrator account and in the Command Interpreter window, immediately after this, system prompts will appear where you will need to enter net user “username” “password”.


    We assume that you yourself understand that instead of “username” you will need to enter the name of your local user account, and instead of “password” you will need to enter a new password. If you did everything correctly, then in order to close the window, you will need to enter exit on the command line and restart the PC.

    How to reset your password on Windows 8?

    In the case of this operating system, things are much simpler! You can reset your password on Windows 8 as follows:

    • On the login screen, you will need to click on the special power icon, which is located in the lower right corner of your screen;
    • Next, you will need to press the Shift key and click “Restart”;
    • Click "Troubleshoot";
    • Click Reset PC;
    • Click “Next” and the system will automatically reboot in order to begin preparations for resetting the password.

    How to reset your password on Windows 10?

    It is not so difficult to reset the password for Windows 10 users, of course, provided that they have access to the email or phone to which their account was linked. Otherwise, you will have to reset the password from the flash drive, as already described above.

    How to reset Windows 7 administrator password?

    The best way to reset the Windows 7 administrator password is through the Windows Command Interpreter. Follow the following sequence of actions:

    1. First, launch it. You can do this by following the following path: Start - Run - Run the program - cmd. In the Command Interpreter menu that opens, you will need to enter: control userpasswords, after which a window called “User Accounts” will open;
    2. Select the account for which you want to reset the password and do not forget to uncheck the box next to “Require username and password”;
    3. In the window that opens, you will be required to enter and then confirm a new password. Next, in the command boot window you will need to enter Exit and restart the PC as usual.

    View the passwords that Windows stores

    In addition to the access passwords of various users, Windows also stores a number of others, no less important: the password for connecting to the Internet, passwords for mailboxes or access to websites. As a rule, there are quite a lot of them, so it is quite natural that they are forgotten over time.

    The operating system offers an “autofill” function for passwords and other frequently entered information in browsers (Google Chrome, Yandex Browser, Opera (Blink), Firefox, Explorer 11, etc.). So it is not uncommon for a user to enter a password once, and after a few months, of course, cannot remember it. Everyone understands that important passwords need to be written down, but not everyone does this. And if you no longer remember the password, how can you find it out, since it is displayed as a series of asterisks: ******?

    The solution is offered by programs from different manufacturers that can obtain the password from this string of asterisks. There are quite a lot of freely available programs for decrypting Windows passwords or hidden passwords from input lines in various browsers.

    We will use a program from Passware. This is an easy-to-use, freely distributed program that analyzes passwords hidden by asterisks and reports them to you. She is very easy to work with. Just highlight the password line and click the ‘recover’ button.


    Of course, there are also commercial versions of programs, which, as a rule, have a greater range of functions. For example, Password Recovery Toolbox scans the system and identifies saved passwords, data saved for automatic filling, Outlook Express passwords, Internet connection passwords, etc. This information is then presented in a convenient form. A few more alternatives to the programs described above: , or Password Viewer.

    Windows XP user passwords

    Windows XP stores user passwords in a modified form. For example, the password "password" would be stored as a string like this: 'HT5E-23AE-8F98-NAQ9-83D4-9R89-MU4K'. This information is stored in a file called SAM in the C:\windows\system32\config folder.

    This portion of the SAM file is encrypted by the syskey system utility to improve password security. The data necessary to decrypt the information after syskey is stored in the system file in the same folder. But this folder is not available to any user. Only the operating system itself has access to it during its operation. You can access the SAM and system files only when running a different operating system or by connecting the drive to another Windows computer.

    All versions of Windows XP have an "administrator" account. This name gives the user full access to the system and the ability to reset the passwords of all other users. This can save you if for some reason you cannot log in with your regular user password. The specifics of using the administrator password depend on the version of Windows XP: XP Professional.

    The administrator password is set during installation of the operating system. If you wrote it down or just pressed enter and left it blank, you can easily log in as an administrator and reset user passwords. To log in to the system in administrator mode, on the system welcome screen, press CTRL+ALT+DEL twice, a window will appear for entering the administrator password.


    When the computer boots, go to ‘start\control panel\user accounts’ and change the required password. Since you are already here, this is a good opportunity to correct your mistake if you left the administrator password blank. In addition, it is advisable to change the name of the ‘administrator’ account. This name is known to everyone and is the first name used to gain access to your computer. To change the account name, right-click on 'my computer' and select 'manage'. Expand 'local users and groups' and open the 'users' folder. Right-click on the 'administrator' entry and edit it.
    XP Home.

    This system will not allow you to simply access your computer in administrator mode. First, you will need to boot your computer into crash protection mode. To do this: restart your computer; immediately after testing the BIOS, press F8 several times; in the menu that appears, select ‘start Windows XP in safe mode’ (boot Windows XP in crash protection mode). When the computer boots, log in with the username ‘administrator’. There is no default password. You can now change user passwords by going to 'start\control panel\user accounts'. When you're done, restart your computer as usual.
    Creating a password reset disk

    Windows XP allows you to write information to a regular floppy disk, which provides the ability to reset your password. Naturally, if you have already forgotten the password and cannot access the system, then you will not be able to create any disk, but it is worth creating such a floppy disk in advance to protect yourself from such accidents.

    To create a floppy disk: go to ‘start\control panel\user accounts’ (start\control panel\user accounts); select the name under which you are logged in; In the related tasks menu, select ‘prevent a forgotten password’; follow the instructions of the wizard that starts.

    To reset passwords using a floppy disk: if you enter the login password incorrectly, the system will ask whether you have forgotten it; At this point, you will be able to use your floppy disk by following the operating system's step-by-step instructions.

    Be careful: If you used Windows' built-in file and folder encryption capabilities but did not install the operating system update (service pack 1), removing the password will result in the loss of encrypted information.

    Utilities for changing passwords Windows XP/7/8/10

    There are special utilities that allow you to edit or reset Windows XP/7/8/10 user passwords. The way most of them work is to boot a minimal version of an alternative operating system, such as DOS or Linux, under which you can access password files.

    An example of such a utility can be found at this address: http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ Instructions for operation, as well as files for creating a bootable Linux disk, are available on the same site.

    Please note that if you have used the operating system's functions to encrypt files and folders, changing the password using any program will cause you to lose access to the encrypted data. In this case, the following method can help, allowing you not to replace the forgotten password with a new one, but to find out the old one.

    Selection and decryption of passwords

    If nothing else helps, but you have physical access to the computer, then all is not lost. You can rewrite the config and SAM files and try to decrypt the passwords stored in them using special third-party utilities. As we already said, for this you will have to use an alternative operating system, such as DOS or Linux. And when the files are at your disposal, you can use one of the programs for decrypting passwords, for example, LC4 or.

    You will need:

    1. Access to another computer.
    2. At least two empty floppy disks.
    3. An archiver designed to work with the command line, for example, RAR.
    4. A DOS or Windows 98 boot disk (an image of the required disk can be obtained at http://www.bootdisk.com/) or a minimal version of Linux (for example, Knoppix). There is no need for boot disks if you can simply connect your hard drive to another computer. If you are using a DOS boot disk and the partitions on your hard drive use the NTFS file system, then to access them you will need a program that allows you to view NTFS partitions under DOS, such as NTFSDOS.
    5. Program for obtaining passwords. We recommend using , as the beta version of this program is free, and the free version of LC4 is very limited.

    Using a bootable USB flash drive:

    1. If your hard drive has NTFS partitions, copy the NTFSDOS file to your bootable USB flash drive.
    2. Copy the archiver (RAR) to the bootable USB flash drive.
    3. Boot your computer from this flash drive. If there are partitions with NTFS, type the NTFSDOS command, this program will show which letter is assigned to your system drive, and you will need to use it instead of the letter C in the next step.
    4. Place system files with passwords in the archive. For example, if you are using the rar32 archiver, the corresponding command will look like this: Rar32 a -v a:\systemandsam c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\system32\config\sam If the files do not fit on one flash drive, the archiver will ask you to insert a second one.

    Hacking passwords

    Each program you select will display a list of accounts detected in the SAM file. Select those for which you need to define passwords. If you are using , select Attack type: Brute-force. If you used only numbers in your password, check the ‘all digits (0-9)’ box. Start the password recovery process using the command from the Recovery menu.

    Password guessing can last from 10 minutes to several hours, or even several days, and may fail. Especially if the password uses letters in different cases, numbers and special characters.

    This is a good way to check the strength of your passwords. If you just want to check your password, follow the steps above and see how long it takes to guess it.

    Windows password cracking programs

    There are a huge number of software tools that can help you crack your Windows password. Apart from the above-mentioned program, there is also Windows Admin Password Hack. But, unfortunately, it can no longer be called current, since it only works in Windows 2000/XP. Its closest replacement is MultiBoot 2k10, which is essentially a feature-rich boot disk.

    Conclusions

    In any case, if one of your loved ones forgot the password for Windows 7, or you yourself were forced to face this, do not despair, there are plenty of solutions to this problem. Well, so that you no longer have questions about how to crack a password on a laptop, we strongly recommend that you save them somewhere, in notes inside your own smartphone, for example.

    We hope you don't have to resort to the methods we've described. To avoid this need, remember to write down all important passwords. And if there is a real need to protect information on your computer, then use passwords made of characters in both registers and numbers and do not use ordinary words. In this case, your passwords will be very difficult to crack.

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    A computer account password is a set of numbers and symbols that can be used to prevent unauthorized persons from accessing private information. The operating system requests a code every time the PC is turned on, as well as after a reboot - it must be entered into a special window. If the entered code is incorrect, you will not be able to log in as a specific user, nor will you be able to receive your information.

    But sometimes it happens that the author of the code cannot enter - simple forgetfulness or another reason. How to log into your computer if you forgot your Windows 7 password? Don’t panic if the code is lost and you can’t log in as your user - this guide will help you log in with your own “account” even if the installed one was successfully forgotten.

    Resetting a lost combination

    The easiest way to regain control of your account is to reset the lost combination and then set a new one. Often this becomes the only option to solve the problem. If you have the theoretical knowledge that can be obtained further, this task will not take as much time as it might seem. You can get rid of the old cipher in a couple of minutes.

    • First of all, restart the computer and immediately start pressing the F8 key - with its help we call up the boot menu.
    • Use the arrows on your keyboard to select “Safe Mode” and press “Enter”
    • The operating system loads and then select the user “Administrator”
    • Close the pop-up window and go to the “Control Panel”. You can log in through “Start”
    • Find “User Account”, go to your personal account and click “change password”
    • Enter your new password and remember it or write it down. If you do not want to set a password, leave the field blank.
    • And the final step. Restart your computer and log in.

    There is one But! If you have nothing in your system other than the “Administrator” account, then this option will not work for you.

    Share this method of retrieving an old forgotten password and restoring access to personal files with your friends using social networks. Subscribe to site updates to stay up to date with new articles and tutorials that will help you become more familiar and efficient with your PC.