Removed password from Windows 7, now I cannot login using Remote Desktop

Question

I removed the password from the only account on my Windows 7 computer and now I get the following message when I try to log in. "Possible reasons are blank passwords not allowed".

I did some research and found out what I should have done (disable the policy to allow blank passwords) but now I'm already logged out and cannot get back in.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Update Thanks for all the answers. I actually think the reason I couldn't login with blank password was because I was logging in with Remote Desktop. I had no idea that made a difference, so didn't think it would be relevant to mention. When I went directly on the physical computer, it did not stop me from logging in without a password.

Answer 1

Thankyou for all your great answers, that might have also worked fine for my problem and for others finding this page.

In my case, the problem was related to the fact that I was trying to log in from Remote Desktop. I had no idea this made any difference. When I logged in on the physical machine, there was no problem with logging in on the account that did not have a password.

Answer 2

Basically what Logman said, but in essence, boot into safe mode. You should be able to log into the administrative account (even if there is no password) and from there, just set a password for your user either through the control panel or in an elevated command prompt type:

net user YourUserName YourNewPassword

Answer 3

Try using a utility like ntpasswd to set a new password. You should then be able to log in and change the policy.

Answer 4

I assume that you have the Windows-7 bootable disk. So then its very easy to get back you system working again. Before this enter to bios setup and check that your default boot device is CD/DVD drive, if it is not then set it to your default boot device. Follow the steps given below:

1: Insert the Windows 7 installation disc and restart the PC and press any key when prompted.

2: Select your language preferences and click on Next. Click on Repair your computer.

3: Select which operating system you want to restore and the click on Next.

NOTE: If Windows 7 is not listed here, or it is blank, then it is ok. Click on Next anyway.

4: Select the system recovery option you want to do.

Here you have to select the System Restore and then restore it on an earlier point. You will get back your system with your previous password.

Also you can hit F8 or Del key to enter into the boot menu then you can select safe mode and then you can login through administrator account. Now run the command prompt by right click on it and select Run as Admin then type the command

net user UserName NewPassword

Answer 5

You have few options to recover:

Quick way: Use some 3rd party utility to create new password, this is already mentioned in another answer.

Microsoft way: Use another computer (or some WinPE boot cd/dvd) to edit security policy offline. To do this you must be able to read files from your broken Windows installation and you must be able to use some registry editor that supports loading external registry files (load hive... in regedit that comes with windows).

Registry files (system wide) is found from \Windows\System32\Config\ and if I remember correctly SYSTEM file is one you are looking for (?). You can check this by googling for Windows Security Policy regedit or something similar.

Answer 6

did you try safe mode? [moved the comment to an answer post]

EDITED: Booting the computer to "Safe Mode" by pressing the F8 key on reboot will give you full access via the local administrator account. Where you can create or set passwords for other user accounts thru the control panel or cmd prompt.

**This would have fixed the OP question, but the OP left out one important thing in his question, and that was the logon error was via remote connection.