Windows 7-10 and Server 2008-2016: Forgot Windows password

If you should forget your local administrator password for your workstation or server, then this little life hack, can assist your further journey 🙂

Insert the installation DVD/ISO to your subjective OS, in this example, Windows Server 2016

The first screen you get is:

 

Choose your language and press Next:

 

On this screen press “Shift-F10” and you get a command prompt:

Find the drive where the Windows folder resides, it’s not drive C normally in this console, for the most times, it located in d:\windows, but try different drive combinations and find windows\system32!:

Type the following in d:\windows\system32:

ren utilman.exe utilman.old

copy cmd.exe utilman.exe

Reboot the server or write:

wpeutil reboot

When windows starts, press the ctrl-alt-del to get to login and press the accessibility button:

Voila! – You have a command prompt 🙂

Now to reset the administrator password:

Type:
control userpasswords2

Now mark the admin, and press “reset password”, fill in the password you want and press “OK” to close the “User Accounts” window.

Type Exit to close the command prompt.

Now try to login to windows, with the new password 🙂

Now to secure the server, so no other bad guy can do the same (can be done without rebooting from image again):

 

And all is safe!

This works on Windows 7-10 and Windows Server 2008-2016 🙂