Forget Your Win XP, Win 7 & Vista Login Password?

It’s highly unlikely that you forget your windows 7 password. Even if you do, don’t worry, there is a way in.

You don’t need to install any third-party software for this. We will use Sticky Keys (that annoying sound when you press shift key many times) for this. It is kind of a security flaw in Windows, but you can disable it before someone uses this trick to access your computer.

What this computer trick does is, it replaces the Sticky Key control panel with the command prompt window.

Shall I Proceed?

Good.

Firstly, you need to have Windows Installation DVD to boot the computer from it.

 Make Sure:-

You have the Windows Installation disc.

BIOS is set to boot from the optical drive.

Sticky Keys is not disabled.

Step 1

Insert the Windows Installation DVD when starting your computer. When the time is right, press F12 to open up the Boot Menu.

Select the DVD drive to boot from it. Windows will load necessary files. It will take time depending upon your computer speed. You will be asked to choose your preferred language and then the following window will appear:-

Choose Repair Your Computer

Choose Repair Your Computer.

Step 2

System Recovery Options window will appear. You will be asked to choose your OS to repair.

Here comes the tricky part.

When you usually click on My Computer, you will see 2 drives, i.e. C drive and D drive. C drive is where OS is installed. But in here it is different.  Click on Load Drivers, a pop up message will appear, click ok.

You will see four drives. In my case:

Recovery (C:)

Local Disk (E:)

Local Disk (D:)

Boot (X:)

The Four Drives As Shown In System Recovery

In System Recovery Options my OS is shown to be installed on E drive. In your case, it might be different. Don’t worry about it,  the computer will sort it by itself, but just note the drive where the OS is shown to be installed, because we need it for coding purposes.

Click Next.

The next window will show the recovery options as shown below:-

Choose ‘Command Prompt’.

Step 3

Now comes the coding part. It is not that complicated, so stop worrying about it.

In the command prompt, type the following commands:-

E: ( The drive where OS is shown to be installed in System Recovery Options window ).

CD\WINDOWS\SYSTEM 32  ( This command will change to the system32 folder under the windows folder ).

REN SETHC.EXE SETHC_BACK.EXE  ( This command creates a backup of the original Sticky Keys utility ).

COPY CMD.EXE SETHC.EXE  ( This command copies the Command Prompt utility to Sticky Keys ).

EXIT ( Do I need to tell about it? ).

Step 4

Now that you have finished copying the command prompt utility to Sticky Keys, you can remove the disc and restart the computer. When you see the login page, asking for the password, press Shift key five times.

The Sticky Keys will sense the shift key being pressed five times and will try to popup the Sticky Keys utility. But we have replaced it with Command Prompt utility, so the Command Prompt window will popup. The command window will allow you to make any changes to the system using the default administrative privileges.

In the command prompt window, you will type the command to change the password of the user which you have either forgotten or are trying to hack into.

If you need to know how many users are there in a system type the following command:-

NET USER 

Type the following command to change the password:-

NET USER USER PASSWORD

Replace password with the password of your choice.