How to Reset Your Forgotten Windows Password the Easy Way

How to Reset Your Forgotten Windows Password the Easy Way

Forgetting your password is never any fun, but luckily there’s a really easy way to reset the password. All you need is a copy of the Windows installation disk and one simple command line trick.

Resetting Your Forgotten Windows Password

Boot off the Windows disk and select the “Repair your computer” option from the lower left-hand corner.

Follow through until you get to the option to open the Command Prompt, which you’ll want to select.

First you’ll want to type in the following command to backup the original sticky keys file:

copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\

Then you’ll copy the command prompt executable (cmd.exe) over top of the sticky keys executable:

copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe

Now you can reboot the PC.

Resetting the Password

Once you get to the login screen, hit the Shift key 5 times, and you’ll see an administrator mode command prompt.

Now to reset the password—just type the following command, replacing the username and password with the combination you want:

net user geek MyNewPassword

That’s all there is to it. Now you can login.
Of course, you’ll probably want to put the original sethc.exe file back, which you can do by rebooting into the installation CD, opening the command prompt, and copying the c:\sethc.exe file back to c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe.

How to Change a Computer Password Using Command Prompt

1. Reboot the computer
   
   
2. 2
   Right after the bios is finished, hit F8 (or F2,F10,F12)
   
   
3. 3
   Select 'Safe mode' or 'Safe mode with networking support'
   
   
4. 4
   Windows will boot up to the logon screen. Click administrator, 9/10 there is no password.
   
   
5. 5
   Open Command Prompt. You can go to Start > Run and type cmd.exe or simply search for cmd using the Windows search function.
   
   
6. 6
   Type net user and press Enter. This will bring up a list of user accounts. Look here for the name and exact spelling of the account whose password you wish to change.
   
   
7. 7
   Type net user name goes here *. Do not neglect any of the spaces (particularly the one before the *) or the command won’t work.
   
   
8. 8
   Press Enter. Once submitted, the command will give you the option of typing a new password for the user.
   
   
9. 9
   Carefully type the desired password and press Enter. The characters will not display as you type, so make sure the Caps Lock isn’t on and be very thorough with the spelling and punctuation.
   
   
10. 10
    Retype the password to confirm. This should weed out any typos.
    
    
11. 11
    Press Enter. The new password should go into effect immediately. If you get an error message or your access is denied, the account you’re working on doesn’t have high enough authorization to change any passwords. See Tips for possible solutions.
    
    

Windows 7: Manually Activating with command

1. Open Command Prompt with Administrative Privileges:  (Type "cmd" into the search box.  right-click on cmd and select "Run as administrator".)    

Note:  See detailed instructions on Opening the Command Prompt as an Administrator in Windows 7.

2. When the DOS prompt appears:

Type in:  c:\windows\system32  and press the Enter key.

Type in:  cscript \windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ato  and press the Enter key.

(IMPORTANT:  You must type in the command exactly as shown, including spaces.) 

 

3. The results of running this command will be an Output Message: 

• If the output message says 'Product activated successfully', then the product activated successfully.
   
• If the output message DOES NOT say 'Product activated successfully', do the following:

1.  Make a note of the error code that is generated in the Command Prompt window.

2.  Refer to Windows 7: Activation Troubleshooting to find out how to resolve the error code.

3.  Try activating Windows again.   (Return to Step 1.)

4. Following these steps will activate Windows 7 for 180-days.  After this 180-day time period, you will need to complete these steps again to reactivate.