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A friend recently passed away, and his wife asked me to gain access to his Windows laptop for which she doesn't know the password.
When I try to guess the password, I get this error message:
You can't sign into your device right now. Go to account.live.com to fix the problem, or try the last password you used on this device.
I can't change the password on account.live.com, because the email address associated with the account no longer exists.
I took the computer offline and tried again, and I get this error message:
Your device is offline. Please sign in with the last password used on this device.
I tried this method, which got me access to cmd.exe and allowed me to change the passwords for all of the local users. But that doesn't allow me to log in; it still tells me I need "the last password used on this device".
So it seems that changing the local password isn't good enough, and that I actually need to know the last password used. Or at least be able to change that.
Does anybody know how I can hack this computer so that I can log in?
Thanks.
Update: I am now able to log in as Administrator, thanks to the help below. I still cannot log into the target account (same error message). I also cannot figure out how to switch it from Live to local login whilst logged in as Administrator.
Update: I changed the title to reflect my current situation: I have Administrator access to the laptop, and can change the target account's password. But I can't figure out how to change the target account from Live to local.
1I fixed the link. The cmd.exe I was able to run says "Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.228]", so I think it's Windows 10. I will update my tag. Thanks. – Martin Del Vecchio – 2018-08-31T18:05:44.390
1The simplest solution IMHO would be to boot PC from any LinuxLiveCD and copy files to external hard drive and reinstall windows. It would work of cause if there wasn't used encryption. – Alex – 2018-08-31T18:06:28.593
Are you able to log on to other user accounts now, but not the user you want to log on to, or are you unable to log on at all? – 3D1T0R – 2018-08-31T18:24:07.763
1I can now log in as Administrator. I think the next step is to switch the target account from Live to local, but I can't figure out how to do that while logged in as Administrator, and I can't get PCUnlocker to boot from a USB drive. – Martin Del Vecchio – 2018-08-31T20:04:48.090
According to Leceur on Microsoft's TechNet forums you can use
– 3D1T0R – 2018-08-31T23:37:43.120HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
settings to logon without having to set the password for it to use. (I'm not sure if this is accurate or not, but it's probably worth a try.) Here's the link: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4b107e53-1c4f-4a2e-b928-77126caf36db/cant-get-autologon-to-work#89dc90da-d6e2-4e34-841f-fca68002ad56