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How to reset the Administrator account password in Windows XP. How to find out the passwords that were entered on my computer How to find out the password from xp

How to reset the Administrator account password in Windows XP. How to find out the passwords that were entered on my computer How to find out the password from xp

Sometimes it happens that you have forgotten or lost the administrator password from a Windows PC. To restore it, it is not necessary to reinstall the system or call for help from specialists. After reading the article, you will be able to deal with this problem yourself.

Windows administrator password hints

The easiest way is to focus and try to remember the keyword using the hint, which is placed near the input field on the welcome screen. If a hint on your PC has not yet been created, and you tend to forget passwords, it is better to do it right now, through the following steps:

click “Start” -> find the “Accounts” section in the Control Panel;
click "Change password" opposite your login;
come up with a new password, enter it together with the old one in the appropriate windows;
Enter the hint and click "Change password".
Keep in mind that any user of this machine will be able to see your hint.

Changing the Windows administrator password using “Microsoft Windows miniPE edition”

You can change the password of any PC user only from account administrator. The situation worsens if the code word is also lost here. In order to change the administrator password, we need third party software such as “Microsoft Windows miniPE edition”. It is a rescue disk that contains a special assembly of Windows OS for system diagnostics and recovery. We follow this pattern:

download the assembly, write it to a disk, insert it into the drive tray of your system unit;
turn on the PC, go into the BIOS, set the boot method from CD-ROM'a;
reboot and wait until the Windows miniPE desktop opens;
in place of the “Start” button, with similar functions, there is a miniPE button - click it;
follow the path “Programs –> System Tools –> Password Renew”;
in the password change window that opens, click “Select Windows Folder” and specify the folder in which our operating system is located;
click “Renew existing user password”, select the Administrator account, enter the password, remember it carefully and confirm the changes;
if everything is done correctly, a window will appear informing you that the password has been successfully changed;
Exit the assembly, reboot, choose to boot from the hard disk in the BIOS and freely log into the desired account with a new password.

Changing the Windows administrator password through “ERD Commander”

This assembly performs functions that are completely similar to Microsoft Windows miniPE edition. It may be more convenient for you to work with ERD. As in the previous paragraph, boot from the disk on which the software is recorded, select “Start” (the same “Start”) –> the “System Tools” section –> the “Locksmith Wizard” subsection –> the “Next” line. Here we find the desired account, enter a new password, confirm the changes with the “Confirm” button, select “Next” and “OK”. Reboot and get a new password.

These recommendations are tested and 100% working. In no case do not follow the advice to delete certain files from the system folder, do not rename or move them. In most cases, this will simply lead to instability in the PC, followed by the need to reinstall the operating system.

If you forgot the password for an old Windows XP computer, don't panic in the first place. You can find out the password from any account, and it is not difficult to do this due to the presence of a variety of specialized utilities by booting from a removable drive. In general, this can be done in several ways:

selection of a password by brute force;
password selection by substitution from a dictionary;
software reset or reset.

The first method requires considerable computer hardware and is far from always effective, especially when using long and complex character combinations. The second one will require slightly less computing power, but will allow you to pick up a password on a Windows computer only if it is simple and is in the substitution dictionary. Used when you need to quickly access a computer. The last method is the most effective and simple, but you can only use it on your own computer, because in this way the account password will be deleted.

Password vault

Windows XP stores passwords for all accounts in a special multi-level encrypted SAM file located in the "system32\config" directory. It will not be possible to get them by the usual method, since only their hashes are stored in the document. Hash sums are not subject to reverse transformation, therefore, knowing them, you can calculate the password to which the hash belongs, using simple transformation algorithms based on brute force. Even a low-powered computer with Windows XP can pick up simple and short combinations up to 6-8 in a few minutes, and it is extremely difficult to calculate complex and long combinations by brute force.

The best programs that allow you to find out the password from your account are: Ophcrack, LCP and similar SAMInside.

Ophcrack

The utility will allow you not only to reset the password on Windows XP, but to pick it up using one of two algorithms:

calculation of LM hashes - used to determine passwords, the length of which does not exceed 15 characters;
rainbow tables - used in the case of encrypting a password using complex mechanisms about the reverse transformation.

Download and install Ophcrack, making sure to check the "Download & install WinXP Tables" option.

During the installation process, the installer will load a rainbow table (it is recommended to choose the standard one). Its volume is about 750 MB.

We launch the executable file and install the downloaded tables that allow us to find out the password.

This is done as follows: click on the "Tables" icon in the toolbar, then select the version of the downloaded file (for example, Windows XP special) and click on the "Install" button.

After the installation of rainbow tables on the computer, click "Load".
Select "Load SAM with ... samdump 2" to start exporting account information.
Select the desired account and click "Crack".

It takes no more than a few minutes to guess a simple password.

LCP

Freely distributed program with Russian localization of the interface. Able to work with local and remote databases. You can find out the password in the LCP in several ways:

selection;
attack using a dictionary, including a third-party one - calculates the hashes of each element from the dictionary and compares it with the extracted password hash;
hybrid attack - calculation of hashes of all words from the dictionary with the addition of other characters specified by the user).

In order to find out the password, we launch the application and through the "Import" menu we call the import item of the SAM file.

Specify the path to the hash storage located in the "system32\config" directory and click "OK".

We set the selection parameters and start the process.
After detecting the password, we stop the enumeration procedure.

The SAMinside program, which dominates LCP in terms of functionality, works in a similar way.

Without access to a computer from a different account and the ability to create a bootable WinPE flash drive in order to run one of the proposed utilities, use the recommendations below.

Reset via command line

Resetting the password on the computer will also allow the functionality of a standard command interpreter launched before Windows boots. In this case, you must have bootable media with portable Windows - WinPE or another operating system installed.

We boot from a USB flash drive or another OS and launch the registry editor using the "regedit" command.
Select the HKLM partition and call the Load Hive command from the File menu.
Specify the path to the system file located in the "system32\config" directory.

But then a misfortune happened - the owner forgot the administrator's access code and, when trying to log in, he sees a message about an incorrectly entered password and the inability to log into the system. The situation is aggravated by the fact that Windows stores all passwords in a secure partition on the hard drive using the SAM system. For security reasons, accessing it and finding out the password is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. On the one hand, this will protect you from third-party interference, but, on the other hand, it spoils your life a lot if you forget the access combination. Users of Windows 7 suffer the most, since this version of the OS only offers work with a local account, unlike the newer Windows 8, 8.1 and 10. Here, the user can attach a Microsoft account to the computer and, in case of a forgotten password, will be able to reset it through site from any device. PC owners on the seven can only remove the administrator password.

Fortunately, everything is not as scary as it might seem at first glance. If you follow our detailed instructions on how to reset your password Windows Administrator 7 when using a local account, as well as how to find out the password, you can easily solve your problem in a short time without outside help. So let's get started.

Method 1: Using the installation disc or recovery image

To do this, you will need a boot disk or USB flash drive with Windows, or a previously created recovery disk (this can also be a USB flash drive). If the second one may not work, since it is unlikely that you constantly create fresh recovery discs, then the installation image can be downloaded from a large number of sites.

Insert a disk or USB flash drive into the PC, mark the media as a boot priority in the BIOS. This is necessary in order to boot from external media, and not from the built-in hard drive.
Depending on the version of Windows, click Diagnostics - Advanced Options - Command Prompt or System Restore - Next - Command Prompt.
When the command prompt opens, add regedit and press Enter.
Click on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key to highlight it, then click File - Load Hive.
In the window that opens, go to C:\Windows\System32\config (if the system is installed on a different partition, the address will be slightly different) and open the System.
Name the bootable section with any name, for example, 555.
In the registry editor, look in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\555\Setup section, find the CmdLine and SetupType parameters there. Click on each of them twice and change the indicators to the following:
- cmdline - cmd.exe.
- SetupType - 0 change to 2.
Check the 555 partition you created, then click File - Unload Hive.
Remove the flash drive or disk, close all active utilities, select "Reboot" in the main window of the recovery wizard.

After restarting, at login, the command prompt will be expanded. With its help, we will perform further operations.

Password reset

To reset your password, use the following command:

net user login password

This command is relevant if you remember the spelling of the username exactly. If you forgot, then type the net user command, after which all the accounts saved on the PC will be displayed.

Create a new account

If you do not have any administrator account set up, you need to create one by entering a few commands. To do this, enter them one by one on the command line:

net user login password /add

net localgroup Administrators login /add

net localgroup Users login /delete

The first command first creates a new account, then assigns it to the administrators group, and then removes it from the users group. After applying all the commands, close the command prompt.

By creating a new account with a new password, you will be able to log into Windows without any problems.

Note! You will not be able to find out the password in this way, just reset it!

Method 2. Using third-party utilities

Offline NT Password Editor

If the first method involved using standard Windows features, then the second suggests using third-party utilities that allow you to reset the Windows 7 administrator password. One of the most acceptable is Offline NT Password Editor, which allows you to get full access to the OS system partition. You can either remove or change the password, or activate the administrator account. The utility does not provide a graphical interface, but nevertheless it is not at all difficult to deal with it. Each step is numbered and indicates what you need to do. So what are the steps to follow to reset your password using this utility?

On another computer or laptop, go to the developer's website, in the Bootdisk section, scroll to Download and download the version you need. The file name consists of numbers and letters. If you want to create a bootable disk, download the file with cd in the name, but if you use a flash drive, then usb.
If you are using a disk, burn the downloaded image through the burning program, and if using a flash drive, then perform the following manipulations:
- Copy the contents of the archive to a flash drive without creating any additional files.
- Expand command prompt as administrator.
- Use the team f:\syslinux.exe -ma f:, where instead of f write the letter under which the flash drive is defined in Windows Explorer. If it does not give any error, then everything was recorded as expected.
- Insert your external drive into the computer, set it in the BIOS as the first one when booting, turn on the computer. The utility interface should launch instead of the Windows Welcome window.

Step 1

The first step is to select the hard disk partition on which Windows is installed. The program provides a list of disk partitions with their size, which you should be guided by. If you remember that the system is usually installed on drive C, which is several times smaller than drive D, it will be quite difficult to make a mistake. Enter the numbers with the section number and press the Enter button.

Step 2

After that, the utility asks which part of the registry to load. Select 1 - Password reset , press the appropriate number and confirm with Enter.

Step 3

Changing or resetting a password by editing user data in the registry. The utility will launch the chntpw Main Interactive Menu, in which item 1 - Edit user data and passwords is immediately selected. Confirm your choice by pressing the Enter button. If you need to change the password, select 2 - Edit (set new) user password.

In the chntpw Edit User Info & Passwords menu that opens, all computer accounts are displayed, with their code designation in hexadecimal number system (RID column). We are interested in the administrator account, most often it is displayed first in the list and is selected by default. If the account name is displayed English letters, type it in the input field below the table, if in Russian, then use the information from the RID column. The entry in the input field will be in the format 0xABCD, where instead of ABCD you need to put the value from the table. The selection is confirmed with the Enter button.

Next, the User Edit Menu is displayed with a list of actions that can be performed with the administrator account. Select 1 - Clear (blank) user password and confirm with Enter. The program should report a successful password reset.

Step 4

Saving the changes made (Step Four: Writing back changes). Press consecutively! and q to exit the previous menus, after which the utility will prompt you to save the changes by issuing the prompt “About to write file(s) back! Do it?”. Type y, and on the next prompt, type n.

To reboot, enter the command reboot or press the small button on the computer's system unit. The system will launch you without asking for a password. You can install it yourself in the account management menu.

ERD Commander

Another fairly advanced utility for resetting the Windows administrator password. First you need to create a bootable USB flash drive with the utility on your working computer. For this:

Prepare a flash drive with at least 1 GB and download the following four files: HPUSBDISK.zip, Ghost32.exe, Grub4dos.zip, ERD Commander image file in gho format.
Insert the flash drive into the computer, then run HPUSBdisk.exe, select your drive in the Device window, mark the File system as FAT32, then click the Start button. The flash drive will be formatted, so take care to save the important information stored on it somewhere.
Unzip the Grub4dos.zip archive and run grubinst_gui.exe, then select the flash drive in the Disk field and click the Install button at the very bottom. If the procedure completes successfully, you should see a message with the following content: “The Mbr/bs has been successfully installed. Press to continue…". Now you can safely move on to the next step.
Run Ghost32.exe - click Ok - Local - Disk - From Image, then select the ERD.gho file and click on it with the mouse.
In the window that opens, select the USB flash drive, click Ok - Ok - Yes and wait until the bootable USB flash drive is completely created. This usually takes 10-15 minutes.

Now you have to work with the bootable USB flash drive ERD Commander. Here's what to do:

After connecting the flash drive to the computer, through the BIOS, set the boot priority so that the flash drive is the first, and turn on the PC.
Select your version of Windows. If you mix up the bit depth of the system, then it's okay, just at the next stage the utility will give an error and you can repeat the procedure from the beginning.
After waiting for the download, select the installed operating system, click Next - Microsoft Diagnostics - Change Password Wizard.
You will see a window with a list of users and fields for entering a password. Select an administrator account, write down the new password and confirm it.
Remove the flash drive from the USB connector, boot in normal mode and use the new password.

Note! You won’t be able to find out the password in this way, just delete or set a new one!

Method 3. Substitution of system files

You've probably heard of the Sticky Keys feature. It is enough to quickly press the Shift button 5 times, as a window appears asking you to activate the mode. The sethc.exe file located in the Windows system partition is responsible for it. Interestingly, you can activate it even in the password entry window when you start Windows. But since the situation is such that the user has forgotten it, we need to replace it with the cmd.exe file responsible for opening the command line. How to do it?

Boot from an external Windows media, in the installation window, click System Restore - Command Prompt.
Apply the following commands in sequence:
- copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\- to create a backup copy of the sethc.exe utility.
- copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe- to replace sethc.exe with cmd.exe.
Restart your computer in normal mode.
When the password window appears, press the Shift button five times, which will open the command prompt.
To change the password, type the command net user login password, then reboot again and now you can definitely get into the system.

Note! You will not be able to find out the password in this way, only delete it!

How to find out the account password

In this paragraph, we will get acquainted with how to crack the administrator password or just find it out. Indeed, in many cases it is simply easier not to reset the password, but simply to count the forgotten one. To do this, we need the Ophcrack utility, which has the capabilities we need. It is able to work in a graphical and text interface and, according to the assurances of the creators, is able to find out almost any password stored on your system. How to use it?

Go to the official website and download the appropriate version: in the form of a program installation file, if you can log in, or a Live CD to create bootable media, if it does not let you into the system because you forgot your password.
Run the installation file or boot from a USB flash drive or disk and select the utility's graphical or text interface.
Wait until the utility reads and displays the system passwords. Depending on the power of the computer, this may take a different time.

That's all. As you can see, there is nothing complicated, and if your password is not too complicated, then the program will help you find it out. You will then be able to log in again and enter your access code. Practice shows that if the password is very complex, consisting of a combination of large and small letters, as well as numbers, then the program may not be able to cope.

Conclusion

We hope that our instructions helped you in a situation where you forgot your Windows account password. You now know how to reset it and install a new one. If you still have questions, ask them in the comments.

The standard situation is that the administrator has blocked many functions of the computer user. What to do, how to reset or find out windows admin password? To reset or change the administrator or Windows user password, there are many options, one of which is the tools of the ERD Commander program. However, your intervention in the security of the computer will be revealed immediately at the next visit to the PC by the system administrator. Much more attractive is the option of revealing the administrator's password, entering Windows under his password, making the necessary changes or removing the necessary information that is available only to the computer administrator and safely exiting the system without traces of his visit. Elcomsoft System Recovery Professional does a great job with these and many other functions related to admin and user accounts. With it, you can find out the password of the administrator of Windows 7, XP, 2000, Server (server) 2003 and 2008. The program is paid, but it is not difficult to find its "certain" version on the network. Let's take a step-by-step look at how you can find out the Windows password with its help, as well as its other features.

Remove Windows password - Elcomsoft System Recovery Professional

Removing the Windows password in the following way. After spending some time searching for the image of Elcomsoft System Recovery Professional, we downloaded it and burned it to disk. Next, we configure the BIOS to boot from the drive and after booting from the disk we get the first window. Select the desired language, agree to the terms of the license and move forward "ok"

Here, most likely, in most cases nothing needs to be done and we continue to move "Next".

Since our goal is to find out the Windows password, here we leave everything unchanged and go to the next paragraph.

At this stage, we are asked to select the Windows directory of the system with which we are working. If several operating systems are installed on the computer in different logical partitions or on one, then we need to know which one belongs to our system (Windows, Windows 0, etc.). But in most cases, one operating system is installed, so there will be no choice. We leave the default settings and proceed, in fact, to the most interesting.

After a short work of the program to determine passwords, statuses and other attributes of accounts, the program will give us a window with the passwords of all users and the administrator of the Windows operating system under study. Here we can rewrite all passwords of interest and exit the program - "Close". However, if we want to work with any account, we need to select it and click "Next", going to the next window for editing account parameters.

This window shows what actions we can take to change the parameters and password of the administrator (user) account: changing the password, raising the privilege of the account to the admin status, unlocking the account that has the status "disabled" or "locked". The program supports any file systems, determines passwords written in all languages that are localized in OS Windows. Using the program, you can find out the administrator password on Windows 7, NT 4.0, Windows Vista, 2003 Server, 2000, XP and Windows 2008 Server.

Agreeing with possible problems, we get the last window before restarting the computer.

If, at the stage of viewing all passwords, you click "Close", you will receive the following window. If we are only talking about finding out the Windows password, it is advisable not to risk possible problems, but to calmly log in with the admin password revealed and make all the necessary changes to the accounts from under the system. Well, if we are talking about unlocking an account or its password has expired, then nothing can be done about it.

Change the password of any Windows user using ERD Commander

This video tutorial shows how to change the password of any Windows user, including the administrator, using the ERD Commander 2007 boot disk.

If you are still unable to change the administrator password, you can always call the computer service wizard to unlock the computer.

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Nowadays, there are practically no cardinal means of protection against hacking computer devices and gaining access to the user's personal confidential information.

Setting an administrator password is also not very effective in protecting a computer, since there are at least several ways to crack and bypass it.

Crack the Administrator password and log into the system under his account - easily and effortlessly

About what these methods will be discussed in this article.

Tip 1. Reset the password using the "Command Interpreter" in Windows

To do this, we sequentially perform the following steps:

click "Start" and select "All Programs";
in the tabs that open, click "Standard" and literally in the first lines of the list we see the "Run" option;
in the command line "Run" enter "cmd" and "OK";
In the command line "Run" we write "cmd"
a window of the Command Interpreter opens in front of us, in which we write the command “control userpasswords2”, then press “Enter;
In the Command Interpreter window, enter the command "control userpasswords2" and click "OK"
“User accounts” appear on the screen - in the “Users” field, select the account we need;
In the "Users" field, select the account we need
uncheck the option "Require username and password", then "Apply" and "OK";
Uncheck "Require username and password"
in the “Automatic login” window that opens, enter and confirm the password or leave these fields empty, click “OK”, again “OK”;
In the "Automatic login" window that appears, enter the password or leave the field blank.
close the command prompt window and restart our computer.

Tip 2. Reset the administrator account password in Safe Mode

To reset the built-in Administrator account, we proceed step by step, according to the instructions below.

Step 1. We restart the computer and press the F8 key during boot.

Step 2. In the menu that appears, we are prompted to select one of the additional options for loading the Windows operating system - select "Safe Mode".

Step 3. Next, we log in to the system using the built-in Administrator account, which, as a rule, does not have a password by default. To do this, enter “Administrator” in the login field, or the same word in Russian. Leave the password field free, but simply press "Enter".

In safe mode, select the non-password protected built-in Administrator account

Step 4. In the window that appears warning that Windows is in Safe Mode, click Yes.

Click "Yes" to continue working in Safe Mode

Step 5. We start working in security mode - as soon as the desktop loads, we press the following sequence of options:

Start –> Control Panel –> User Accounts

In Safe Mode, select "User Accounts"

Step 6. Hover over the username whose password you want to edit or reset, click on this account icon.

Step 7. In the menu that appears on the left, select the "Change password" item, enter a new password and confirm it. If we just reset the password, then leave this field blank.

In the menu on the left, select the option "Change password", then enter a new password and then confirm it

Step 8. Click the "Change password" button.

Step 9. First close the "User Accounts" window, then the "Control Panel" window.

Step 10. Reboot the computer.

Tip 3. How to reset the password for the built-in Administrator account

This tip will come in handy for those who are faced with a problem when the built-in account is protected by a password, which we, of course, have safely forgotten. So, we act according to the instructions below:

We need a CD (or flash drive) with a set of resuscitation programs for Windows recovery, which we insert into the drive, and then restart our computer.
A recovery disc is perfect for system recovery.
During computer startup, we enter the BIOS by pressing the "Dilete" key.
In the BIOS, we change the installation priority and assign the computer to boot from the CD-ROM. Next, put our boot disk with the operating system in the drive and restart the PC.
After the computer has booted from the CD-ROM, the recovery disk menu appears on the screen, in which we select the edited copy of Windows and go to "System Restore".
In the edited copy of Windows, select "System Restore"
Next, in the dialog settings of this window, click "Command Prompt".
In the command field that opens, enter "regedit" and confirm the command with the Enter key.
We find and select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE section, and select File from the menu, and then Load hive.
We need to open the SAM file, then select the section HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ hive_name \ SAM \ Domains \ Account \ Users \ 000001F4, then double-click on the F key and go to the very first value in line 038 - to the number 11, as shown in the photo.
Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.. and double click on the F key
We replace this number with the number 10, while being very careful, since only this number needs to be changed, while it is strictly forbidden to touch other values.
This number "11" is replaced by the number "10"
In the same HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\bush_name\SAM\Domains\Account\Users\000001F4 section, select the File menu, then Load hive and then "Yes" - we confirm the unloading of the hive.
Select the menu File - Load hive and confirm the unloading of the hive
Now we close the registry editor, as well as the entire installation process, take out our disk and restart the computer.

Cracking the Administrator Password in Windows 8

For the Windows 8 operating system, there is a simple way to reset the Administrator password. All you need to do for this is to follow the steps below:

Step 1. We go to the "System Restore" section, and then the "Diagnostics" console, where we select the "Advanced Options" section.

Copy the file "sethc.exe" to avoid losing it

Step 3. Now on the command line we write the following:

copy c:\windows\System32\cmd.exe c:\windows\System32\sethc.exe, that is, instead of "sethc.exe" we enter "cmd.exe".

Replace the file "sethc.exe" with "cmd.exe"

Step 4. Exit the command console using the “exit” command.

Step 5. We restart our computer and boot with the usual parameters.

Step 6. Press the "Shift" key five times to launch the command line.

Step 7. Enter "lusrmgr.msc" into the command console and see the administrator's name.

We enter into the command console "lusrmgr.msc"And we see the name of the administrator

Note: when the account is disabled, it can be activated using the command "net user "Admin_name" / active: yes"

Step 8. Set a new password - type the command "net user "Admin name" password".

It should be noted that this method is equally suitable for earlier versions of operating systems.

Here are some simple ways you can reset the administrator password on a computer and laptop in operating systems Windows 7, 8 and 10.

Useful video on the topic

The videos below will clearly demonstrate how you can still crack the Administrator password.