I just came back from vacation and I totally forgot the administrator password to log into Windows 7 on my new laptop. I am the only account set up and cannot remember the login. Is there any way to unlock my computer by recovering or resetting the Windows login password?

Forgot your Windows administrator password and can’t bypass the logon screen? Have you tried all possible passwords but the login dialog keeps saying that you’ve entered a wrong password? It is really frustrated if you’ve lost your Windows password. Some users have gone as far as reformatting their hard drives and reinstalling the operating system, simply because of a forgotten password. In most cases, it’s not necessary to go to such extremes. You can regain access to your computer in a number of ways. In this tutorial we’ll show you several well-known methods which you can use to reset lost administrator password from Windows login screeen.

Method 1: Reset Lost Admin Password with the Hidden Administrator Account

This method includes the first thing which should do whenever you forget your Windows login password. When we install Windows, it automatically creates an account “Administrator” and sets its password to blank. So if you forget your user account password then try this:

1. Start your computer and when you see Windows Welcome screen / login screen, press ctrl + alt + del key combination twice and it’ll show you the Classic Login box.
2. Type Administrator in Username and leave Password field blank. Press Enter and you should be able to log in to Windows.
3. Now you can reset your account password by accessing the Control Panel -> User Accounts.

You can also log in to the hidden administrator account from Safe Mode. In Safe Mode Windows will show this hidden Administrator account on the login screen.

Method 2: Reset Lost Admin Password with Password Reset Disk

The easiest way to reset a forgotten Windows password is to use a previously created password-reset disk. You can create such a disk on USB removable media within the Windows User Accounts menu by opening the Windows Control Panel, selecting User Accounts, and clicking “Create a password reset disk” in the left pane. But you will have the foresight to create a password reset disk before you forget password. Once you have the disk, you can reset lost admin password easily by following the steps below:

1. Once you’ve typed the wrong password in the login screen, Windows will show a “Reset password” link below the login box.
2. Make sure you already have the password reset disk inserted at this point, then click on the “Reset password” link.
3. Follow the instructions in the Password Reset wizard. This will allow you to create a new password.

After that you should be able to log in to Windows with the new password. You can use the same password reset disk any time you need to reset your lost admin password.

Method 3: Reset Lost Admin Password with A Boot CD

If the methods above can’t help you out, the last resort is to use a bootable password cracking CD to reset your lost Windows user password. Reset Windows Password is a recovery utility which runs from a bootable CD/USB drive and enables you to reset forgotten Windows 8/7/Vista/XP admin password easily. Here we’ll explain how to create a bootable CD and then use it to reset your password.

1. Download the Reset Windows Password utility on an alternate PC. Unzip the download file which contains a bootable ISO image.
2. Burn the ISO image to an empty CD using ISO2Disc, BurnCDCC or ImgBurn software.
3. Boot your locked computer from the boot CD, then wait for the OS inside the CD to load.
4. After the Reset Windows Password program opens up, choose your administrator account and then click on “Reset Password” button.
5. It will remove your lost admin password in no time.

Remove the boot CD and restart your computer. When you reach the Windows login screen, left the password blank and you can then log in to your administrator account successfully.

Reset Windows Password utility is capable of running from a CD or USB drive. Just get your locked computer to boot from the CD/USB drive and the password cracking tool inside the CD/USB enables you to reset lost or forgotten Windows login password quickly and easily. It supports Windows 8/7/Vista/XP and Windows Server operating system.

Here we’ll walk you through the entire process of creating a password cracking Live CD and using it to reset lost or forgotten Windows login password. If you’re a little nervous, it might help to take a look at this entire step-by-step guide before you actually get started.

How to Reset Lost or Forgotten Windows Login Password?

1. Since you obviously can’t access your computer right now because you don’t know the password, you need to use a secondary computer to create a password cracking Live CD. Download the Reset Windows Password utility and save it onto that computer.
2. Once downloaded, extract the ISO file from the ZIP file. Feel free to do this using the integrated tool in Windows or a dedicated program like WinZip.
3. Burn the ISO file to a blank CD or DVD using your favorite CD/DVD burning program. If you don’t have one, you can use BurnCDCC or ISO2Disc program. If the ISO file is not burned correctly, the password cracking Live CD will not work at all.
4. After the password cracking Live CD is created, go to the computer that you are resetting the password on. Insert the Live CD into your optical drive and then restart your computer. Make sure that you have configured your BIOS to boot from CD before your hard drive. Otherwise, the CD won’t get boot up.
5. The booting process will take a while. Once it’s done loading up, you should see the Reset Windows Password program, which will display all of the Windows user accounts that it has found on your computer.
6. Choose the user account with a lost or forgotten password, and then click on Reset Password button. The program will unlock/enable that user account and clear/blank its password immediately.
7. Remove the password cracking Live CD from your optical drive and restart the computer. You’ll finally get to log into Windows without entering a password!

Reset Windows Password utility is not designed to recover/find your original Windows login password, because Windows login password is encrypted using some very strong encryption algorithms and the time in order to crack a password is usually unacceptable. But this program can overwrite/blank your lost or forgotten Windows login password in just a matter of seconds!

The first option is to use Ophcrack. This is a Windows password cracking tool that reads the NT/LM hashed (encrypted) copies of the passwords from the system, and then uses dictionary and/or brute force methods to find the password that matches the hash. The stronger the password (the longer it is, whether it uses random letters and numbers or words and names) the longer this will take.

The second option is to use Reset Windows Password utility. If you have lost the administrator password and are unable to log in to the computer at all then you must reset the password to something known. This is achieved by booting the computer from a bootable CD/USB and remove the login password as blank. Here are detailed steps:

How to Recover Windows Login Password?

1. Download the zip archive of Reset Windows Password utility to an alternative computer. Once you download the zip file, just unzip it and burn the ResetWindowsPwd.iso file to a blank CD or USB flash drive using ISO2Disc.

2. Insert the bootable CD/USB drive into the target computer with a forgotten administrator password. Power on the computer and set it to boot from CD or USB, not your local hard drive.

3. Shortly after loading the operating system inside the CD/USB drive, it will launch the Reset Windows Password program. You’ll see the Windows SAM registry hive and a list of Windows user accounts which are detected by the program.

4. Choose a user account and then click on Reset Password button, it will remove your Windows login password immediately.

5. Remove the bootable CD or USB drive. Restart the computer and you can then log in to Windows with a blank password.

With Reset Windows Password utility you can easily recover Windows login password for Windows 8/7/Vista/XP and Windows Server 2008/2003/2000.

Reset Windows Password is the powerful password reset bootdisk which comes with the ability of resetting login password in Windows 7/Vista/XP. Using the boot disk to remove a login password is much easier than re-installing Windows. No need to take your PC to a computer repair shop or call a technician to your home to fix the issue for you. You can reset forgotten Windows login password on your own.

How to Reset Login Password in Windows 7/Vista/XP?

1. Download the zip archive of Reset Windows Password utility to an alternative computer. Once you download the zip file, just unzip it and burn the ResetWindowsPwd.iso file to a blank CD or USB flash drive using ISO2Disc.
2. Insert the bootdisk you’ve created into the target computer whose login password you want to reset. Power on the computer and set it to boot from your bootdisk instead of the local hard drive.
3. Shortly after loading the operating system inside the bootdisk, it will open up the Reset Windows Password program. You’ll see the Windows SAM registry hive and a list of Windows user accounts which are detected by the program.
   
4. Choose a user account and then click on Reset Password button, it will reset your login password immediately.

The last step is remove the bootdisk and restart the computer. You’ll find that you can log in to your desired account with a blank password. Additionally, you can use the same bootdisk to reset login password for domain user accounts in Windows Server 2008/2003/2000. I think every system/network administrators should have a copy of the password reset bootdisk in their toolbox.

How to Reset Windows Login Password on Windows 7/Vista/XP:

1. Download the Reset Windows Password utility from this link: http://www.top-password.com/reset-windows-password.html. Unzip the download file. After you unzip it, there is an ISO image file: ResetWindowsPwd.iso, which is what you need to burn.
2. Burn the ISO image file to a blank CD or USB drive using the ISO2Disc utility. Here we’re going to use CD to create a password reset disk.
3. Now we need to set your locked computer to boot from CD. Turn on the computer. Normally, the BIOS screen tells you the keyboard key you need to press to enter into BIOS Setup Utility. On most computers is Del, F2, F9 or F12 but yours might be different, so watch out for that on the boot-up menu.
4. After entering into BIOS, set CD/DVD as the 1st boot device so you can boot off the CD; or set Removable Device as the 1st boot device if you want to boot from USB drive.
5. Once your computer boots from the CD, it will load the Windows PE operating system on your CD.
6. After one or two minutes, it will launch the Reset Windows Password program.
   
7. Select the Windows SAM registry file for your desired Windows installation if there is more than one. The program will list all your Windows user accounts.
8. Choose a user account and then click Reset Password button. It will remove your forgotten Windows login password instantly.

Restart your computer in normal mode and eject the CD. Now you should be able to log in to your Windows user account without entering a password. The procedure is very simple that even computer novices can follow to reset Windows login password on Windows 7/Vista/XP. Never need to worry about losing your important files when you forgot Windows login password.