Windows 7 password recovery - possible?

Matthew

Matthew

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Matthew
A guy I know got stuck when he forgot his p/w for his WIn7 PC. A mutual PC-expert guy that we know said he doesn't have any utilities for WIn7. I don't know if he has a recovery disk or any of the install disks.

Anybody got any experience with this?
 
With the right software CD you can view and change password. I don't recall the name of the software, but I know I have a copy somewhere in my office.
 
Thanks, I passed it along. I'll try to keep you posted on whether it works or not. The PC owner is a "regular guy" who simply forgot his p/w. The guy that's been trying to help him has done a lot of XP p/w recovery work and has utilities, but whatever he has is not working with Win7.
 
I'm pretty sure that ERD will work too if you can get a copy. WinPE as well, I believe.

Beware that if the drive in encrypted, your friend will need the decryption token / key / password / whatever, and the procedure for recovery will be different.

Rich
 
I don't think it's encrypted. I'll find out more tomorrow. I've messed around with some XP magic a long time ago. The guy trying to help is competent, just doesn't have any Win7 tools and wasn't having any success with whatever it is he does have.
 
Here's my favorite technique.
Load standard windows 7 install disk (I carry one on a usb drive and boot that usb drive).
Choose recovery with command prompt.
Find the sethc.exe program (usually in \win\system32\)
Make a copy of \win\system32\sethc.exe on the target hard drive (not the one you used to boot)
Copy cmd.exe to \win\system32\sethc.exe
Reboot to hard drive
Press shift 5 times and you get a cmd prompt
net user newadmin newpasswd /add
Or if you know the admin user name
net user Administrator newpassword
If you added the new user:
net localgroup Administrators newadmin /add
net localgroup Users admin /delete
Now you know the password for a local admin.
Once you're in as admin restore the original sethc.exe.
 
Joey4420 said:
With the right software CD you can view and change password. I don't recall the name of the software, but I know I have a copy somewhere in my office.
Click to expand...
Ophcrack?
 
bios password is easy, remove the battery on the motherboard, press the start button, reinstall battery and password is gone.
 
Joey4420 said:
bios password is easy, remove the battery on the motherboard, press the start button, reinstall battery and password is gone.
Click to expand...
I'll pass that one along, I have been pretty much a spectator on this. I'm not sure if this is a desktop or laptop.
 
I doubt there will be any problems with recovering/resetting the BIOS p/w. I think the biggest deal was finding something that would work on the Win 7 p/w. For whatever reason, the tools we had wouldn't do it. The utility recommended above works, it was tested on another PC. This guy now has the tools to do all he needs to do, I'll probably find out either tomorrow or sometime next week how it worked out.

Thanks for the tips, that utility is now part of my toolbox.
 
So much for the security of a password!
 
@Daomer with every option they can find. I personally carry either a USB drive with some software on it that will allow me access or I do still have an old copy of software that should work on a CD that will just show me the password with the user name. Not that I am Dishonest... just help out friends in need, who fat fingered passwords.
 
Skyrys62 said:
What are the weakest security points of a home?

As properly named... windows!
Click to expand...

Yeah, Windows security has always been a joke. But that's good, in a way. I used to make a lot of money resetting forgotten Windows passwords, which was good for me; and the clients got access to their computers back, which was good for them.

And yet ironically, Bitlocker is practically bulletproof. Go figger.

By the way, some password-reset tools will totally hose a Windows PC whose system drive is encrypted. Others merely won't work. So basically, if a user forgets both the login password and the Bitlocker recovery key (or its equivalent for third-party encryption), then they're up ****'s creek, without a paddle, in a boat with a hole.

Rich
 
Good FDE makes any machine nearly bulletproof once you turn it off... by design :)
 
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