Windows 8 / 8.1 - Reset Forgotten Password Including Administrator [Tutorial]

This tutorial covers how to reset a forgotten Windows 8 or WIndows 8.1 password without using a third party password reset utility. For this tutorial you do need to have the copy of Windows 8 on the DVD or the USB Flash drive that came with your computer, or that your purchased to upgrade to WIndows 8. This will only work on local computer accounts. If you are using a Microsoft Account, this will not work, and you will need to reset it online. A Microsoft Account is linked to an email address such as Outlook.com.

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This tutorial covers how to reset a forgotten
Windows 8 or WIndows 8.1 password without
using a third party password reset utility.
For this tutorial you do need to have the
copy of Windows 8 on the DVD or the USB Flash
drive that came with your computer, or that
you purchased to upgrade to WIndows 8. This
will only work on local computer accounts.
If you are using a Microsoft Account, this
will not work, and you will need to reset
it online. A Microsoft Account is linked to
an email address such as Outlook.com.
If you do not have a copy of Windows 8 I will
link to another of my video tutorials showing
how to reset a forgotten password using a
free third party password reset utility.
We first need to boot the computer to the
Windows installation media.
You need to have your computer set to boot
to the DVD or USB device. If your computer
does not automatically boot to the Windows
8 media you will need to check how to set
the boot device for your particular computer
make and model.
Place the DVD in the disc drive or place the
USB flash drive in the USB slot.
Turn on the computer. If your computer is
set to boot to the DVD or flash drive you
will see a black screen with the message “Press
any key to boot from CD or DVD ….”. When
you see this message press any key on the
keyboard.
Restart the computer now.
The computer will boot to the “Windows Setup”
screen.
We need to enter the “Advanced Startup Options”.
Select the “Next” button.
Select the “Repair your computer” link.
On the “Choose an option”, select the
“Troubleshoot” option.
On the “Troubleshoot” screen, select the
“Advanced options” option.
On the “Advanced options” screen, select
the “Command Prompt” option.
We are now going to backup and copy some files
so that the Windows Command Prompt will open
when we select the Windows “Ease of Access”
tools.
First let’s backup the Ease of Access tools
file. We will copy this file to the root of
the “C:” drive, but you can place it anywhere
you want.
In the “Command Window” enter the following
command without
the quotes. “copy c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe
c:\”.
If the command is successful you will see
“1 file(s) copied.” show under it.
Next we will copy the command prompt executable
“cmd.exe” and overwrite it on the Ease
of Access executable “utilman.exe”.
At the prompt enter “copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe”, and
press enter.
You will be asked permission to overwrite
the file. Enter a “Y” for yes, and press
enter.
If the command is successful you will see
“1 file(s) copied.” under it.
Remove the Windows DVD or USB Flash Drive
from the computer and reboot.
We now need to launch the command prompt and
reset the forgotten Windows password.
When Windows reboots to the lock screen select
the screen to show the user account.
Select the “Ease of Access” button on
the bottom left of the screen.
To reset the account we need to know the exact
name of the account.
To get a list of all the accounts on the system
enter the following command at the command
prompt without the quotes,“net user”,
and press enter. Here we can see all the accounts
on the system including the “test” account
we are going to reset.
To reset the password we need to enter the
command in the following format “net user
myusername mynewpassword”. If you have a
username with a space in it, then you need
to enclose the username with quotes.
In this case I will reset the “test” user
account and change the password to “12345678”.
The command for me will be “net user test
12345678” without the quotes. You will need
to adjust the command you enter for your account
name and the password you want to use.
Enter the command in the command prompt and
press enter.
As long as the command executed correctly
you will see the message “The command completed
successfully.”
We can reset any of local accounts on the
system including the “Administrator” account.
If we reset the “Administrator” account
we need to run one more command to enable
it before we can log in. If you did not reset
the administrator account you can skip this
next step.
At the command prompt enter the following
command without the quotes “net user administrator
/active:yes”.
Close
out of the command prompt window by selecting
the red “X” at the top right of the window.
Now let’s unlock the screen and select the
account we reset. Enter the new password and
log in.
Now that we have successfully reset the password
and logged into our account we need to change
the command prompt and ease of access files
we modified at the beginning of this tutorial.
If we don’t the ease of access tools will
not work in the future if someone needs them.
Boot the computer to the Windows installation
media like we did at the beginning of the
tutorial.
Make sure that the Windows installation DVD
or USB drive is still in the computer.
Turn on the computer. If your computer is
set to boot to the DVD or flash drive you
will see a black screen with the message “Press
any key to boot from CD or DVD ….”. When
you see this message press any key on the
keyboard.
The computer will boot to the “Windows Setup”
screen.
We need to enter the “Advanced Startup Options”.
Select the “Next”, “Repair your computer”,”Troubleshoot”,
“Advanced options”, and “Command Prompt”.
Enter the following command without the quotes
“move c:\utilman.exe c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe”
It will ask permission to overwrite the file.
Enter a “Y” and press enter.
If the command was successful you will see
the message “1 file(s) moved.”.
Now remove the Windows installation media
from the computer and restart.
Thank you for joining me on this tutorial.
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