Since you obviously can’t get into your computer right now because you’ve forgotten your Windows password, we need to make a PCUnlocker Boot CD on another computer that you have access to. Then you can use it to boot off your computer and it enables you to reset lost Windows 8/7/Vista/XP password easily!

How to Reset Lost Windows Password with PCUnlocker Boot CD?

Download the zipped ISO image of PCUnlocker Boot CD. Unzip the download file and burn the ISO image on a CD or DVD using your preferred software such as ImgBurn, BurnCDCC, ISO2Disc or InfraRecorder.

Once you’ve created a PCUnlocker Boot CD, put it into the CD drive of your locked computer. Turn on the computer and change the boot sequence in the BIOS to set CD/DVD-ROM as the first boot device. On a Windows 8 computer with UEFI BIOS, you also need to disable the Secure Boot option and change the boot mode from UEFI to Legacy.

After booting from the PCUnlocker Boot CD, the Computer will run a Windows PE operating system from the CD, it will NOT install anything. Just about one or two minutes, you’ll see the PCUnlocker program. The program should display a list of user accounts existing in your Windows SAM registry hive.

Choose a user account and click on “Reset Password” button. The program will reset your lost Windows password and also unlock/enable your user account when it’s necessary. Now click on “Restart” button to reboot the computer and remove the PCUnlocker Boot CD.

When you come to the Windows login screen, just leave the password box empty and you can log back into your Windows user account immediately. Done!

In Windows 8/7/Vista/XP, there is a default built-in administrator account which is automatically created at the time of Windows installation. For security reasons the built-in administrator account is hidden and inactive by default. But there is no password protected with it and you can access this administrator account from Safe Mode. After log into Safe Mode with the built-in administrator account, you can reset lost password for any other user account easily. Here are step-by-step instructions:

How to Reset Lost Windows User Account Password in Safe Mode?

Power on your computer and repeatedly press F8. It will show you black screen with few options, select “Safe Mode with Command Prompt” option with arrow keys and hit Enter. Now computer will start Windows in Safe Mode and at the end command prompt will visible.

Now with the help of this command prompt you can reset lost Windows user account password easily. Type “net user” command and hit Enter it will show list of all users.

Now type net user owner 123 to reset the password of the user owner to 123 (in place of owner you need type the name of user for which you want to change password) and press Enter. A message “the command completed successfully” will appear that means your password has been successfully reset.

Now restart your computer and login with username: owner and password: 123. you can access your computer and continue to reset other account password through Control Panel.

This is the easiest way to reset lost windows user account password. But it only works when you are able to start computer in Safe Mode. If safe mode could not be loaded or there is a password set on the built-in administrator account, then you need to use some third party software to reset lost Windows user account password, such as Reset Windows Password utility.