Getting Windows 7 admin account password?

Question

I don't want to reset the password nor delete it. I need to know the password. What can be done? Specific software for that? Easier way of getting the password from inside a non-admin account through Windows itself or reboot is needed? Thanks

EDIT: Also, where are the password files stored? If I get in the system files with another bootable OS, I can read those and get the pwd from it.

EDIT: I don't want to reinstall Windows, I want the password.

Answer 1

The password is stored as a hash and you can not get the password from the hash, you can only test a password and see if you end up getting the same hash afterwards, if the hashes are the same the guess you just tired is the correct password.

The Ophcrack project on sourceforge has a bootable ISO you can use to get a copy of the hash of the password then you can try and crack the password using a variety of password cracking techniques (see Ophcrack's documentation for instructions on how to perform the various steps). Note if the password was long (over 10 characters) it may take a VERY long time to get it.

Answer 2

The way to get this password is to ask the person who set the password.

Failing that you can look over his/her shoulder when (s)he enters the password, or set up a camera to look at the keyboard, use a hardware key logger etc.

You can (or should) not be able to recover the password from a file on the computer. No sensible setup stores passwords in plain text. Instead they run your input though a one way calculation and then store the result. Each time you enter a password the same will be done and the end results will be compared. If they are the same then whatever you typed as password must be the same.

The plain password itself is NOT stored.

The 'calculation' done to the password is intentionally made in a way where it is relative easy to do it one way, but extremely hard or even impossible to do it the other way around.

That leaves you with four options:

1. Ask for the password.
2. Steal the password. (e.g. find the post-it with the password written on it, keylogger, camera, ...)
3. Guess the password. (Educated guess)
4. Try every possible combination (via a program).

Ophcrack mentioned by Scott tries the last solution. If someone set a short password this may work. If it is along and complex password it may take thousands of years.

Answer 3

Reinstall Windows and recreate the accounts.