Resetting a password in Windows 7 or Windows Vista
Resetting a password in Windows 7 or Windows Vista One problem that comes up now and again for any OS (well, any modern OS) is how to recover administrative access to the system when the password has been forgotten. There’s a reasonably straightforward solution [1] for Windows 7, which I haven’t seen on the web so far, so I thought I should publish it. Be aware that I can’t offer or provide any warranty, support, or assistance with this procedure, apart perhaps from clarifying any part of the instructions that aren’t clear. It’s always worked for me, but that’s all I can promise. This procedure also works on Windows Vista; the underlying technique works on Windows XP as well but is not usually feasible because the Windows XP install CD does not contain a command-line recovery option. One important caveat: since this resets the password rather than letting you find out what it is, any encrypted files belonging to the user will be permanently lost . This is the short version, for advan