Tech Help Locked Win 7 PC

O

oxsmudge

I made one post
Joined
Jan 9, 2019
Messages
5
It is my dad's PC powered by Windows 7 and has been with him for years. I bought him a new Dell laptop a few months ago and unfortunately he forgot the admin password of old Win 7. Now he asked me to unlock the device but I don't have any clue except reinstall.

Could some one shed lights on this?
 
Well, Another option (If you haven't fixed the issue) is Hiren's Boot CD. On his Mini XP there's a tool that will reset passwords on the machine. But you do have to mount it on a flash drive or cd to use it (and there's plenty of documentation for that).

I only know how to use version 15.2, but fans have made a new environment using windows 10. And use it at your own risk (You can do some damage...)
15.2 Official
https://www.hirensbootcd.org/old-versions/

New Ver. Fan release.
https://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/
 
Windows stores passwords in the SAM registry hive using one-way hash. This is located at %WinDir%\system32\config\sam. If you are not an admin, you can not access this. It is vulnerable to offline attacks like password recoveries/password deletions.

https://www.lifewire.com/offline-nt-password-and-registry-editor-review-2626147

is what I use. It is also free and open source. It is command line based..but it doesn't "recover" your password..but rather deletes the password completely. I've used it a lot on people's computers. Because it doesn't attempt to recover the password, it's pretty fast and efficient.

It is explanatory as long as you know how to boot from a CD and can read.

There are, of course, other options..But that is the one I use.

Good luck.
 
Last edited:
Worked for me.

View attachment 20567

Of course, this is the Win10 version. Is your machine set up for booting to USB/CD? I'd try the UUSB Installer to write it to a ~4 GB USB flash drive if you have the ability to boot to flash. Otherwise, what Ric posted is another viable solution.

EDIT: Tried it on my Win7x64 host in my ESXi server. Worked there as well.
 
Last edited:
Update this thread. A lot of people here took their time to help you.

Do you still have the same issue? Don't be a dick.
 
Ric said:
Update this thread. A lot of people here took their time to help you.

Do you still have the same issue? Don't be a dick.
Click to expand...

No, the issue is still. The recent issue is not able to boot from the USB being used to reset the password
 
oxsmudge said:
No, the issue is still. The recent issue is not able to boot from the USB being used to reset the password
Click to expand...

Well, Alright, There's a couple options to fix that (Normally), If you can't boot from one of the USB or CD recovery options, then, 1. Try a new USB (From my experience, 10 years is the life span of one, or it's some read/write issue), 2. Make sure you can boot it on a different PC if possible (Make sure it's working, all that jazz), 3. Make sure your BIOS allows boot from USB (Might not be enabled in an OEM BIOS, but idk), If none of these work, there's probably more options that you can google, but I'm too lazy to put everything on a forum post, so do some research, and find out what works.
O oxsmudge Let us know if that works, or if you fixed it already.
 
oxsmudge said:
No, the issue is still. The recent issue is not able to boot from the USB being used to reset the password
Click to expand...

M4A1-S has a good write up of th next steps in troubleshooting. But, you do need to start letting us know the steps you are taking as well as the results so we can further assist.
 
M4A1-S said:
Well, Alright, There's a couple options to fix that (Normally), If you can't boot from one of the USB or CD recovery options, then, 1. Try a new USB (From my experience, 10 years is the life span of one, or it's some read/write issue), 2. Make sure you can boot it on a different PC if possible (Make sure it's working, all that jazz), 3. Make sure your BIOS allows boot from USB (Might not be enabled in an OEM BIOS, but idk), If none of these work, there's probably more options that you can google, but I'm too lazy to put everything on a forum post, so do some research, and find out what works.
O oxsmudge Let us know if that works, or if you fixed it already.
Click to expand...

Thanks. It worked now by using a new USB sticks, lol
 
Gooery said:
Windows 7 is really old.why not reinstall a new OS(Like Windows 10,Windows XP)?
Click to expand...

Because Windows 7 is the last worthwhile Windows OS without having to rip it to shreds just to have a little privacy
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top