How to Reset Forgotten Windows Password

Tested and Experimented on Windows 7

In case you lose access to your Windows 7 machine as you forgot the password, you can reset it with the steps below -

1) You need to have the Windows 7 DVD or bootable USB drive.  Boot the machine with either of two.

2) Click on Repair my computer.

3) Please make a note of drive which is identified as Windows installation drive. You will need it later.

4) Now, choose command prompt as repair method.

5) At this point, you need to make couple of changes in existing Windows installation.  run the command

cd Z:\Windows\Syetm32    (Z is the drive which you noted in Step 3)

copy utilman.exe utilman_bak.exe  (This will copy existing utility management as a backup)

move cmd.exe utilman.exe (This will move cmd to utilman)

6) Exit from command prompt then reboot the computer.  This time let it boot with the installed Windows instead of DVD/USB.

7) Once, you see login screen - please press the key combination -

Windows + u

This will open up command prompt.  (In case you do not see command prompt, please ensure you followed step 5 correctly).

8) Run the below command to reset the password of the user -

net user username newpassword

This should change the Password.  You can verify by logging in with new password.

9) Now, its time to undo the changes we made in step 5.  This is to make sure, defaults remain default and you stop a potential security threat (Did you know what I mean?)

10) Follow from step 1 to 4 then run the commands below -

move utilman.exe cmd.exe
copy utilman_bak.exe utilman.exe

Reboot the computer and remove bootable media.  You are all set now.