Windows XP password recovery

This involves removing the existing password and setting it to blank, a password reset CD can reset/remove the password on any Windows account.

Before creating a Windows password recovery / reset disk have you attempted to login as Administrator? If you can, you can reset any password.

To login as Administrator power on the computer and hit the F8 key, the choose safe mode and you will be able to login as administrator and change any account passwords from – Control Panel – User Accounts

Please NOTE this page Windows XP password recovery contains a lot of images – please be patient as loading times may vary.

Reset Windows XP Password How to Guide

The other option is to create a Windows password recover – reset CD, you will need to boot from this and then you will be able to reset your password, to create this please read on for our comprehensive, easy to follow Reset Windows XP password recovery guide

To do this you will need to create a password reset CD which we will cover below.

Free ISO Burner

You will need a computer with a CD Writer and internet access.
An application such as Free ISO Burner which you can get from here..
The Hirens ISO boot image which you can get from here..

Once you have everything launch the Free ISO Burner software Select Open and then choose the Hirens Boot CD Image.

Make sure you have a CD in the computers drive and select Burn – This might take a few minutes depending on the speed of your Writer – Now the CD will be a Bootable Hirens disk

Now power on the Computer with the password problem – load the Hirens CD and hit the F12 as its booting – this will give you a small boot menu – from this choose the CD drive.

Now you will see the Hirens Boot CD menu

Select Start Boot CD

At the next Menu Select option 9. Next to see more utilities

Select Option 4 Password & Registry Tools…

Select Active Password Changer (NT,2000,XP,Vista)

Choose 1 this option is fine for disks with a single operating system and will find the Logical Drive for you.

You will now see a screen with the logical drive list, as it says Press Enter to continue.

This will now search for any SAM or Security Accounts Manager databases (windows accounts)

You will then see a list of all the user accounts on your computer, reset your account or the main administrator account by choose the number of the account so in the image below we will choose 1.

The next screen will show what processes it will run on the selected account, as a default it will choose Password never expires and Clear this Users Password, this is fine for most purposes, select Y to implement the changes.

You will now see a blue confirmation that the attributes/settings have been changed.

Hit the Esc key on the keyboard 4 times to get back to the Type M for menu option.

Remove the CD and Reboot the computer – the password should now be removed and Windows should log you straight in.

Now you have completed the Windows password recovery / reset remember to put a password back in place once you have logged in, this can be done from Control panel – User Accounts

Keep your Hirens disk safe, once you have the disk it only takes a minute to reset Windows XP password or passwords in the future.

The disk is also contains a multitude of other utilities in addition to more on reset Windows XP password recovery tools, such as diagnostics, file recovery and much more..

computer adviser windows xp password recovery article