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Win7 Password recovery.


MarkJohnson

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I am trying to reset the password of a laptop for a friend and the password is forgotten and there is no recovery/password reset CD.

I used to be able to recover the password from a utility I found here some years ago.

Can anyone help me find this utility?

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Google and you'll find find plenty of advice for such circumstances.

Apparently if you have not set an Administrator password you can start in Safe Mode and try logging on with the Administration password field blank. Safe Mode with Command Prompt offers another route too.

 

 

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7 minutes ago, WalksInSilence said:

Google and you'll find find plenty of advice for such circumstances.

Apparently if you have not set an Administrator password you can start in Safe Mode and try logging on with the Administration password field blank. Safe Mode with Command Prompt offers another route too.

Between 2/3 and 4/5 of the results of such a google search will deliver links to (mostly crappy) commercial tools, or to methods that won't work, etc.

@MarkJohnson

in this case it is particularly important to be exact in the terms used, there are 3 approaches possible:

1) reset
2) bypass (and reset)
3) recover

Normally for #1 (reset) above you can use any windows 7 install CD, or USB or PE or any bootable OS with NTFS support (make a backup copy of sethc.exe or utilman.exe, then copy cmd.exe to either sethc.exe or utilman.exe) *like*:

http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/15031-How-to-Log-In-to-Windows-Without-the-Password.html

For #2 (bypass and reset) nowadays the easiest is to use a USB stick with Easy2boot and PassPass:

https://www.easy2boot.com/

https://www.easy2boot.com/add-payload-files/windows-install-isos/passpass

If you want to actually recover the password, the procedure is more complex, doable but if not strictly needed, I would advise you against it, as it will also take some time.

jaclaz 

 

 

 

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Thanks for the help.  I finally figfured it out.  My main issue is my laptop doesn't shut off with the power button and goes to sleep instead.  I learned if I hold it down instead, it does turn off.  Now, I have forced safe mode reboot and force off to simulate boot error when it tries starting up.  Then I got the advanced boot menu and was able to recover with the net user command to reset my password after jumping through hoops to do it.

I will look into that easy2boot method.  I used to use something like UltimateBootCD, but it didn't seem to have password recovery.

But thank you all for your help.

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Yep, good :) ,

BUT the "forced off" is ultimately the same as the "reset" by (after having made a backup/copy , etc. ) copying cmd.exe to either sethc or utilman, I personally do not suggest or endorse it because the event triggering the "advanced boot menu" revolves around essentially (intentionally) corrupting some files or possibly even some filesystem entry.

Most probably, let's say 98.3% of the times this corruption is trivial, and the system will boot to the advanced menu (after having done mysterious things for several minutes), the problem might be in the (still say) 1.7% of cases when the "forced off" for *some reasons* makes deeper corruption and the system cannot boot anymore.

Having an alternate booting system (that is a PE or a Linux) is advised when you attempt that, but then again, if you have this alternative booting system you can do the reset faster (as it won't take the several minutes of the attempts to repair) and safely (and without the jumping theought hoops).

The "old" (but still OK, at least up to 8.1) way made use of chntpw, the UltimateBootCD does have a provision for a "Offline NT Password & Registry Editor":

https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/index.html

http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

so it is very possible that you remembered correctly.

jaclaz 

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