Reset administrator password in Windows Vista

So you forgot Windows Vista administrator password or other regular user password on Windows Vista? Do you think you have no other option but to re-install Windows? Well, someone has made a password reset disk just for this situation. The following procedure tells you how to reset a user or administrator’s password in Windows Vista :

1. Download the Offline NT Password and Registry editor CD ISO image from http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/
2. Burn the ISO to a blank CD using your favorite CD/DVD burning software like Nero, Roxio or ImgBurn.
3. Place the created CD in your CD/DVD drive and restart your computer.
4. Your computer will boot from the linux based NT Password and Registry Editor CD. You will see a screen as shown below, just press Enter to continue.

   

5. Next it will detect the partitions on your hard disk on which Windows is installed. In most cases, it would detect only one partition so just press Enter to continue. If you have a multi-boot Windows computer (with more than one version of Windows installed), then select a partition accordingly by pressing 1, 2, 3 etc. and press Enter to proceed.

   

6. Next it will ask which part of registry is to be selected for editing. The passwords are stored in the SAM, so just press Enter.

   

7. Next you have to choose if you want to edit registry or you want to edit passwords. Choose 1 to edit passwords. Just press Enter.

   

8. In the next screen, it will list all the usernames, whether they are admin or not. Whether the account is locked or not. In the following screen, it lists two admin accounts : Administrator and Trisha. It lists three other accounts all of which are disabled.

   

Type the account username, password of which you want to reset, and press Enter. In the above picture we are resetting Trisha‘s password.

9. Next you have have any options like clearing password (making it blank password), promoting a regular user account to admin level etc. Press 1 for clearing password of the selected account and making it a blank password and press Enter.

   

10. If all goes well, you will get a message : Password cleared! as shown.

    

11. Type ! and press Enter to quit. Then press q and press Enter.
12. It will ask you if you want to save the changes, type y and press Enter as shown. After saving the changes, it will print *** EDIT COMPLETE *** message.

    

13. Type n and press Enter to end the script. Now you can press Ctrl Alt Del key combination to restart your computer. Remove the CD and boot into Windows without entering any password.