Reset Administrator Password On Windows XP/Vista or 7

Hi there, so you forgot the administrator password on your computer, and now you are wondering how to reset it ? you are in the right place, and to comfort you up a little bit, you are not unique on this matter. there are a lot of people that for some reason forget the login password on their computers, and most of the time the answer they find all over the Internet is to reformat the hard drive, and reinstall windows. this is not the answer you will get here, I work in a huge company and resetting windows passwords is a task we do everyday, so today I will share with you how to reset the administrator password on any computer running Windows XP/Vista or Windows 7 – the easy way.  just keep in mind, if your hard drive information is encrypted, then you won’t be able to read such information after abruptly changing the administrator password. let’s proceed.

Download the required software

Download Hiren’s BootCD from the following link http://www.hirensbootcd.net/download.html?ver=9.9 the download links should be at the bottom of the page. I prefer version 9.9 because it is normally the version I use to reset administrator passwords, but I guess all versions from 9.9  and up should do the trick. the download is 177 MB so a fast Internet connection is required, otherwise it will take an eternity (:)

Burn the ISO image to a RW-CD

Unzip the Hiren BootCD download. after you unzip it, it should look like this:

I highlighted the ISO image, that’s what you need to burn!. if you need help creating an ISO image, I wrote a post awhile ago on how to do it how to create an ISO image

Booting the computer from Hiren’s BootCD

normally, the BIOS screen tells you the keyboard key you need to press to change the boot order, watch for that message!. on most computers is F9 or F12 but yours might be different, so watch out for that on the boot-up menu.

once you boot from the CD, Hiren BootCD startup page should look like this:

scroll down and choose Mini Windows XP from the menu. your computer should start booting:

Once on the desktop, it should look like this:

click on the BootCD WinTools diskettes icon.

Resetting the password

that should bring the tools menu.

from the menu choose, Password/Keys > Password Renew:

that should bring the renew password utility:

on the right, click on Select a target button:

that should bring the Windows directory. on the C: drive, select the Windows directory:

click on OK. now the directory path should look like this:

on the select task menu click on Renew existing user account:

the Renew existing user password window will come up.

on this window type the New Password and then Confirm password and then click on the Install button on the left panel.

you should get a notification confirming the account password has been changed:

close out of everything and reboot your computer in normal mode. your administrator password should now be changed.

I have tested this procedure on Windows XP Windows Vista and Windows 7 and it works fine, so if yours somehow does not work, go back through the steps again and make sure you have not missed any. pardon me for the excess of images, I like to use a lot of images to make it easier for some people to follow my tutorials.

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