If you forgot Windows 10 admin password, you'll be unable to install any software. Sometimes you won't even be able to use your computer. Microsoft doesn't make it easy to reset your password, but you have some options. In this tutorial we'll show you 6 simple ways to reset forgotten Windows 10 password for administrator and Microsoft account. Rest assured, at least one way will help you out.
Method 1: Use Password Reset Disk
Using a password reset disk is Microsoft's official method to reset a lost Windows password. The only downside of this method is that you need to create a Windows 10 password reset disk before your password is lost.
If you have created a password reset disk, you can easily set a new password for signing in to your Windows 10 computer. Check out this tutorial: How to Use a Password Reset Disk in Windows 10.
Method 2: Login with Other Sign-in Option
If you can still log into Windows 10 with PIN, picture password or another administrator account, there is a good chance you can open an elevated Command Prompt and reset Windows 10 password easily.
Simply press Windows logo key + X on your keyboard to open the Quick Access menu and click Command Prompt (Admin). To reset your forgotten password, type the following command and press Enter. Replace account_name and new_password with your username and desired password respectively.
Method 3: Reset Microsoft Account Password Online
Since Windows 8, most people are now using a Microsoft account for logging into Windows. When you forgot your Microsoft account password, just use another computer to visit the Windows Live password reset page on the Microsoft website, and you can reset the password online. It's relatively easier than resetting local account password.
This method requires you to have access to the alternate email account or phone number you provided when signing up the Microsoft account. If you don't have access to those anymore, Microsoft will be unable to verify your identity. In that case, you can convert Windows 10 Microsoft account to a local account from a boot media, so you can log back into Windows 10 without losing files.
Method 4: Reset Windows 10 Password with MSDaRT
DaRT (Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset) is a toolset from Microsoft that helps IT professionals recover the computers that have become unusable. Boot your computer with DaRT Recovery CD and then launch the built-in Locksmith Wizard tool, it allows you to reset Windows 10 password of any local account.
Unfortunately, DaRT is not free. This tool is only available for Microsoft volume customers, TechNet Plus subscribers, and MSDN subscribers. Before performing a Windows 10 password reset, check out this video tutorial on Microsoft website: Reset passwords with the DaRT
Method 5: Reset Windows 10 Password with PCUnlocker
PCUnlocker allows you to unlock any Windows computer that you were locked out by a forgotten password. It is a bootable image that can be written to a CD or a USB stick using the freeware ISO2Disc. After booting from PCUnlocker Live CD (or USB), you can view all local accounts for your Windows 10 installation.
Simply select one of your local accounts and click on Reset Password button, the program will check the status of your selected account and perform the following tasks to fix your password problem:
- Remove the password if your Windows account is password protected
- Switch associated Microsoft account to local account
- Promote your selected standard/limited user to administrator
- Activate the account if it's disabled
- Unlock your locked account
- And much more...
Once you've reset Windows 10 password and get back into your system, make sure you set a new password that you won't forget next time. It's also good practice to create a Windows 10 password reset disk if you use quite complicated password for security reason.
Method 6: Restore Windows 10 to Previous State
If you don't want to use any Windows 10 password reset software or your hard drive is encrypted with BitLocker, you can restore your computer to the most recent restore point includes an old password that you do remember. However, programs that have been installed since the restore point have to be installed again.
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Windows 10 Password Reset Usb Download Free
If you’ve forgotten your Windows password and you don’t have an install CD laying around, there’s no need to worry. Not only are there half a dozen complicated ways to reset the password, you can do it easily with the Offline Windows Password editor.
Of course, if you do have a Windows CD, you can reset your password the easy way with a simple trick.
Note: this should work on all versions of Windows, but if you are running Windows 8 or 8.1 and also using a Microsoft Account to login to your computer, you’ll need to reset your Microsoft Account password using a web browser on their web site.
Create the Boot Disk
You’ll need to create a boot disk using another PC. If you don’t have another PC, you’ll have to bug one of your friends to use theirs. First, you’ll need to download the boot disk from here:
Then download and launch ImgBurn, which is a really simple piece of software that helps you burn an ISO image to a disk. Note: if you have some other application for burning an ISO image, you can use that instead.
Choose the Source, click the burn button, and create the boot disk.
You could also create a bootable USB drive instead if you’d like, the instructions are on the Offline NT download site.
Resetting Your Windows Password
Boot your PC from the boot disk (you might have to adjust the BIOS to allow booting from the CD). You’ll be prompted at a couple of screens, which you can generally just hit the Enter key at. For instance, this screen asks if you want to select the first partition, and [1] is already selected, so just hit Enter.
The same thing happens at the next step, where you have to choose the path to your registry. The default is fine, so hit Enter.
Next you can choose whether to use password reset or some other thing, so just hit Enter for password reset.
Next you’ll be prompted whether you want to edit users or the registry. You want to edit user passwords, so hit Enter again.
And now, the first screen where you’ll need to do something other than hit the Enter key. In this case, you’ll want to type the username that you want to reset. In my case, this was “geek”, so I just typed that (without the quotes). Then hit Enter.
Now you’ll want to probably just blank the password, which is already selected, so hit the Enter key again (you can always change it once you’re back in Windows).
And now, you’ll have to save what you just did. So type an exclamation point to quit (or the “!” symbol), then type the letter “y” to save.
At this point it should say “EDIT COMPLETE”, and you can reboot your computer. You should be able to login without any problems—just make sure to go set a new password.
Reset Windows Password Software
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.
RELATED:How to Reset Your Forgotten Password in Windows 10
Note: If you are using Windows 10 and a Microsoft account, you’ll need to reset your password a different way. The problem is that with Microsoft accounts, your password actually has to be reset on their servers instead of only locally.
Resetting Your Forgotten Windows Password
Boot off the Windows disk (if you don’t have one, you can make one) 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:windowssystem32sethc.exe c:
Then you’ll copy the command prompt executable (cmd.exe) over top of the sticky keys executable:
copy c:windowssystem32cmd.exe c:windowssystem32sethc.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:windowssystem32sethc.exe.