{"id":498,"date":"2012-01-04T22:07:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T21:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/?p=498"},"modified":"2022-07-25T23:27:40","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T22:27:40","slug":"reset-windows-passwords-for-vista-7-and-2008-server","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/2012\/01\/reset-windows-passwords-for-vista-7-and-2008-server\/","title":{"rendered":"Reset Windows Passwords for Vista, 7, and 2008 Server"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/reset-windows-password-vista-7-2008-server.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-521\" title=\"reset-windows-password-vista-7-2008-server\" src=\"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/reset-windows-password-vista-7-2008-server.jpg\" alt=\"Logo image for resetting forgotten passwords for Windows Vista, 7 and 2008 Server\" width=\"122\" height=\"112\" \/><\/a>On one of my VMs with Windows 2008 Server, I needed to reset the Administrator password. A quick google led me to a very nice little trick. This also works for Windows Vista, Windows 7 as well as on Windows 2008 Server.<\/p>\n<p>The trick involves booting from a Windows CD, getting to a repair <a href=\"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/reset-windows-password-ease-of-access-login.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-519\" title=\"reset-windows-password-ease-of-access-login\" src=\"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/reset-windows-password-ease-of-access-login-300x118.jpg\" alt=\"Ease of Access icon button, which is used to launch a command prompt to change the windows password\" width=\"180\" height=\"71\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/reset-windows-password-ease-of-access-login-300x118.jpg 300w, http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/reset-windows-password-ease-of-access-login.jpg 376w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 180px) 100vw, 180px\" \/><\/a>Command Prompt, replacing the utilman.exe file with\u00a0cmd.exe, booting Windows up as normal, and then clicking the &#8220;Ease of Access&#8221; button on the login screen to bring up a Command Prompt to issue: net user administrator newpassword<\/p>\n<h3>What you need to reset the Password<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>A Windows installation DVD (or reinstallation DVD)<br \/>\n<em>(If you have Vista installed, you&#8217;ll need a Windows Vista DVD. If you have Windows 7, you&#8217;ll need a Windows 7 Microsoft DVD).<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Reset the Windows Password<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/repair-recovery-command-prompt.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-527\" title=\"repair-recovery-command-prompt\" src=\"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/repair-recovery-command-prompt-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Image of the Repair Windows Option, where you can choose the Command Prompt which will let you change the utilman.exe to the cmd.exe\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Insert the Windows installation DVD<\/li>\n<li>Reboot the PC and boot from CD\/DVD<\/li>\n<li>Choose &#8220;Repair&#8221;. Under the Repair menu, look for &#8220;Command Prompt&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>In the Command Prompt, issue the following commands below:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<pre>c:\r\ncd\\\r\ndir\r\n#(You should see some folders listed. If you don't see Windows, change to the d: drive. d:)\r\ncd Windows\r\ncd System32\r\nmove Utilman.exe Utilman.exe.bak\r\ncopy cmd.exe Utilman.exe<\/pre>\n<ul>\n<li>Reboot the PC and start Windows<\/li>\n<li>Click the &#8220;Ease of Access&#8221; button on the bottom left (or press Windows + U)<\/li>\n<li>In the resulting Command Prompt window, issue the folllowing:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<pre>net user administrator newpasswordhere\r\n#(to list all local usernames, just type \"net user\")<\/pre>\n<ul>\n<li>Close the Command Prompt and Login \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<li>Rename and move the files (utilman.exe) back.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Further information: youtube has many videos showing a step by step process. See: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ar-VoO9ogHc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ar-VoO9ogHc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This above method helped me quickly reset the Windows Password without having to go making a special boot CD such as the <a href=\"http:\/\/pogostick.net\/~pnh\/ntpasswd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Offline NT Password and Registry editor<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On one of my VMs with Windows 2008 Server, I needed to reset the Administrator password. A quick google led me to a very nice little trick. This also works for Windows Vista, Windows 7 as well as on Windows &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/2012\/01\/reset-windows-passwords-for-vista-7-and-2008-server\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[10,40,8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":687,"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sburke.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}