windows 8 password reset

A friend of mine has accidentally lost her windows 8 password. I tried booting a live USB Hiren's & Windows windows unlocker enterprise (windows xp based live disks). The problem is that the normal mode is UEFI based (in BIOS) and it does not allow to boot Legacy OS (like xp). But when I enable "legacy mode", it disables the UEFI mode so Rescue CD's dont show the internal hard disk of laptop.

Any help ?

Gagan93

Posted 2014-04-29T08:32:40.740

Reputation: 337

Are we talking about a local account or a microsoft login? – Patrick R. – 2014-04-29T08:35:08.367

local account, not microsoft account – Gagan93 – 2014-04-29T10:46:53.403

This was a Kickstarter project and has proven to be very handy in the week since I got the software. It can reset the password of any user on almost any version of Windows. It can also add new users or clone existing users.PasswordResetKey

– Ramhound – 2014-04-29T11:39:07.563

Answers

What you could try, is boot into a Ubuntu Live OS and:

Rename C:\windows\system32\Utilman.exe to C:\windows\system32\Utilman.exe.bak
Rename C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe to C:\windows\system32\Utilman.exe
Load back into windows, and click the 'Ease of access' button on the logon screen, and command promt should now open.
Type: net user ###### * (replace hashes with the username)
Give them a new password

Just Lucky Really

Posted 2014-04-29T08:32:40.740

Reputation: 926

clever trick indeed! but before you should take ownership of the these .exe files in system32 directory as by default it is trustedinstaller and then set permissions to full control in order to be able to rename them – None – 2014-10-10T04:07:12.773

Nah if you boot into Linux, it ignores all windows permissions. You could delete the entire System32 folder if you like Lol – Just Lucky Really – 2014-10-10T15:08:27.413

This answer works much more reliably than the popular chntpw alternative, since it uses Windows tools for resetting password. chntpw, e.g., doesn't work with non-latin user names, and has been reported to sometimes not actually reset password despite apparent success. – Ruslan – 2016-08-10T09:42:28.080

1thats quite clever and nice trick ! ;) – Gagan93 – 2014-04-29T10:46:36.517

1Just remember to rename the programs back to Utilman.exe and cmd.exe :D – Just Lucky Really – 2014-04-29T16:50:34.030

You can perform the password reset using the Windows 8 installation media.

Here is an article explaining all the required steps to do so :

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/a/reset-password-windows-8.htm

Hope this helps !

Ob1lan

Posted 2014-04-29T08:32:40.740

Reputation: 1 596

I have been using Trinity Rescue Kit quite successfully to reset Windows 8 local user password, bring local users into an administrator group, etc.

Just burn the ISO to a CD, enable Legacy Boot in BIOS, boot up the that CD and then go to "Windows Password Resetting" option.

RusI

Posted 2014-04-29T08:32:40.740

Reputation: 861