Now ask a serious question on everyone's mind: how to reset my Windows 7 password without disk, without neither password reset disk nor installation disk.
Believe many people have known that both a password reset disk and an installation CD/DVD can be used to reset Windows password. However, most people have the habit of setting logon password for their Windows, but never create any password reset disk. And few people will keep a Windows installation disk all the time. So the question is what you will do when forgot Windows 7 password having no disk. Through this article, you will get solutions to Windows 7 password reset without disk.
Note: Since it is so easy to reset a standard user password that I suppose everyone can perform, the mentioned Windows 7 password in this article means Windows 7 administrator password.
3 Options to reset Windows 7 password without disk
Option 1: Reset Windows 7 password without disk (in Safe Mode)
Windows 7 creates its built-in administrator account while system installation. If you have ever enabled the built-in Administrator and didn't set any password for it, its password should be blank by default. Now, you can boot your Windows 7 computer into Safe Mode so that you can access the built-in administrator to reset any other accounts passwords.
Step 1: Start or restart your computer. While it’s booting press F8 to enter Advanced Boot Options screen.
Step 2: Select Safe Mode with Command Prompt by "↑" and "↓" keys.
Step 3: You will directly get into the built-in administrator and the Command Prompt window.
Step 4: Run the command Net User <Username> <New Password>.
When it displays "The command completed successfully”, you have successfully executed the command and reset your Windows 7 password to a new one.
Option 2: Recover Windows 7 Password with Ophcrack
If you have not enabled the built-in administrator account which is disabled by default or forgot its password so that you can't access, is there any way to reset Windows 7 password without disk? Of course, Ophcrack is the well-known free application, which you can use to recover Windows 7 password which consists of no more than 15 characters.
Step 1: On another computer, download the Ophcrack Vista/7 LiveCD from Ophcrack download page.
Step 2: Burn the iso image file into a CD/DVD drive with burn program like UItraISO.
Step 3: Start or restart your password forgotten Win7 computer. Persistently press F2 or DEL key until entering its BIOS setup utility. On the BIOS screen, set your computer to boot from the CD/DVD flash drive.
Step 4: After your computer boots up, Ophcrack will put Windows 7 password recovery on autopilot.
After password recovery is finished, all user accounts and the corresponding passwords should be displayed on the screen. Then write down the user password you forgot.
Option 3: Reset password with Windows 7 Password Refixer
Although the success rate of recovering Windows 7 password with Ophcrack is almost 99%, it cannot rule out the possibility of failure. Once failed, you can use the advanced tool – Windows 7 Password Refixer to achieve Windows 7 password reset without disk.
Step 1: Create a bootable disk on another accessible computer.
1. On another accessible computer, download and install Windows 7 Password Refixer.
2. Insert a USB or CD/DVD flash drive into the computer.
3. Launch the Windows 7 Password Refixer. Follow its guide to burn it to the USB/CD/DVD flash drive. Before burning, you will need to agree to format your USB or CD/DVD media.
When the “Burning successfully” message displays, you successfully get a bootable disk.
Step 2: Reset Windows 7 password on your locked computer.
1. Insert the bootable USB/CD/DVD flash drive into your locked Win7 computer.
2. Start or restart your computer. Press DEL or F2 to enter its BIOS Setup Utility.
3. Set your computer to boot from the USB or CD/DVD device by changing boot options.
4. After your computer boots, follow its guide to reset your Windows 7 password to blank.
Related Articles
There are a number of roads you can take when you need to hack into your own Windows 7 computer, some of which you may have already read about in our I Forgot My Windows 7 Password! How Do I Get Back In? article. Of them all, one of the most successful strategies is the one we're about to walk you through here.
While this password reset procedure would classify as a "hack" of sorts, there's no software to download or extraordinary computer skills required. If you can follow directions, you can reset your Windows 7 password this way.
We've created this step by step tutorial to accompany our original How to Reset a Windows 7 Password how-to guide. There are a number of relatively complicated steps involved, so screenshots with very detailed instructions will make the process much easier. However, if you're familiar with executing commands, booting from portable media, and working with Windows recovery tools, then you'll probably do fine with the more brief directions.
webphotographer / E+ / Getty Images
To begin, you'll need to boot from a Windows 7 Setup disc or flash drive. If you're booting from a disc, watch for the Press any key to boot from CD or DVD or similar message and be sure to do that.
If you're watching closely, you may catch a Windows is loading files screen. If you see that, or an Install Windows screen, or a System Recovery Options screen, you're in good shape and can continue on to the next step.
Don't Have a Windows 7 Disc/Drive or Need Help Booting From One?
If you're not familiar with booting from something other than your hard drive, see our tutorials on How to Boot From a CD, DVD, or BD Disc or How to Boot From a USB Device, depending on what sort of media you're using. Most issues getting the computer to boot from a disc or flash drive instead of the hard drive are solved by making boot order changes in BIOS. See our How to Change the Boot Order in BIOS tutorial for help with that.
If you don't have a Windows 7 disc or flash drive, it's perfectly acceptable to borrow a friend's or use one from another Windows 7 computer since you're just using it for diagnostic purposes. In other words, don't worry at all about using someone else's media—you won't be entering any product keys or invalidating yours or another computer's activation as part of this process.
A Windows 7 system repair disc will work fine for this, too. If you don't have access to a Windows 7 Setup disc or flash drive and don't already have a system repair disc, you can create one for free from any other working Windows 7 computer with an optical drive. See How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc for help.
Here's an Advanced Tip: If even a system repair disc isn't an option, you may still be able to follow this tutorial, for the most part, using any bootable recovery media that gives you write-level access to the hard drive. This includes popular third-party bootable recovery media, installation or recovery media designed for later versions of Windows, etc.
On the Install Windows screen with the big Windows 7 logo on it, check that the language, time, and keyboard options work for you, and then select Next.
(No, just as a reminder, you're not going to install or reinstall Windows 7 as part of the password reset process.)
If you booted from a Windows 7 System Repair Disc, what you'll see here instead is a small System Recovery Options window with just a keyboard option. Select Next.
If you're looking at your Windows 7 login screen right now, it means that your computer booted "normally" from the hard drive as it always does, not from your disc or flash drive that you intended to boot from. Look back at Step 1 for some help in solving this problem.
Once again you're at the Install Windows screen with the Windows 7 logo. This time, however, you have an Install now button and some options at the bottom.
Select Repair your computer, right above the Microsoft copyright note at the bottom of the screen.
You won't see this screen if you booted from a Windows 7 System Repair Disc. If that's what you're using, just move on to the next step.
Next, you'll see two windows, both labeled System Recovery Options, one on top of the other. The one on top says Searching for Windows installations....
All you need to do here is wait, but this what the process looks like. Once this screen disappears, you can move on to the next step.
Now that the small window with the progress bar is gone, jot down the drive letter shown under Location. On most computers, this will be D: but yours could be different depending on how Windows 7 was originally set up.
While you may be used to seeing the drive Windows 7 is installed on as C: while working from within Windows, most computers are set up with a small recovery drive that's normally hidden from view. Since drive letter assignment is dynamic, and this small hidden drive is visible when working from System Recovery Options, your main drive has probably been assigned D:, the next available drive letter. Once you've committed that drive letter to memory, select Windows 7 from the Operating System column and then select Next.
Don't worry if nothing is listed under Operating System. System Recovery Options needs to locate Windows 7 only if you plan on performing certain operating system repair tasks, none of which we'll be doing as part of this password reset process. In any case, be sure to select the Use recovery tools that can help fix problems... radio button before clicking Next.
From the list of recovery tools available on System Recovery Options, select Command Prompt.
Now that Command Prompt is open, type the following command exactly as shown and then press Enter:
copy d:\windows\system32\utilman.exe d:\In case it's not clear, there are only two spaces in this command: between copy and d:\ and between exe and d:\.
Assuming the command was executed correctly, the text 1 file(s) copied. should have appeared directly under the command string and you should now be at a prompt again.
Next, type this command exactly as shown and press Enter.
In this command, there are also only two spaces: between copy and d:\ and then between exe and d:\. This time, however, you're presented with a question after executing the command:
Type Y or Yes at the flashing prompt and then press Enter. As with the last command, you should see the 1 file(s) copied. confirmation.
If the Windows 7 drive letter you noted in Step 5 was something other than D:, swap out all instances of d in the commands above with whatever drive letter you noted.
The first command made a backup copy of the utilman.exe file so you can restore it later.
The second command copied the cmd.exe file overtop the utilman.exe file. This action is what makes this whole Windows 7 password reset trick work. You'll undo this later.
Now that the two commands have been successfully executed, remove the Windows 7 disc or flash drive you booted from in Step 1.
Next, close the Command Prompt window and then select Restart at the bottom of the System Recovery Options window.
There's nothing to do here but wait for your computer to restart and for the Windows 7 login screen to appear.
Just so you know, we don't make do-nothing steps just for fun. This was included in our walkthrough because many people overlook the bit in Step 8 where you need to remove the Windows 7 disc or flash drive.
While this might have sounded unnecessary, what usually happens if you forget to remove it is that the Windows 7 setup or repair process begins again, as you saw in Step 2. That's exactly what you wanted then, but right now you should be booting from your hard drive, as you normally do.
So, if you've found yourself back where you started, just remove the disc or flash drive and restart.
You should now have reached your Windows 7 login screen. No, your password is not reset yet, but we're about to do just that.
See that little icon on the bottom-left of the screen? Click it!
Typically, the Ease of Access menu appears after pressing this button. However, because we replaced the file representing that tool, utilman.exe, with cmd.exe, Command Prompt appears instead!
Now that Command Prompt is open, you can reset your Windows 7 password to anything you'd like using the net user command.
The net user command is a really easy command to use. Just execute it like this:
net user username password...replacing username with your Windows 7 account name, and password with your desired new password.
For example, you might change your password to n3verE@Tsn0W by executing the net user command this way:
net user Tim n3verE@Tsn0WAssuming everything was executed properly, you should have been greeted with a The command completed successfully. message after pressing Enter.
There are spaces between net, user, the username, and the password. If your username has a space, like Tim Fisher, use quotes. Reusing our example above but with a full name as the username, you'd have executed net user "Tim Fisher" n3verE@Tsn0W.
Not Sure What Your Username Is?
If you were the last person to log in to Windows 7 before forgetting your password, your username should be listed right there on the login screen. You can see Tim in big, bold letters in the screenshot above.
However, if you're resetting the password to another user on the computer and aren't sure exactly what the username is, you can generate a list by executing the net user command without options, for example:
net userA list of all of the users on the computer will be produced right in the Command Prompt window, which you can then reference for proper spelling when changing the password as described above.
Finally, we're at the exciting part!
Close or click away from the open Command Prompt window and then select the Password field.
Enter your new Windows 7 password you set earlier and then press Enter or choose the little arrow button.
Welcome back to your computer!
If you're again prompted with a The user name or password is incorrect message, select OK and repeat Steps 10 & 11 again.
YOU'RE NOT DONE YET!
While it may be very tempting to call it quits right now, it's important that you now take the necessary steps to:
- Prepare for the future event of forgetting your password again so you don't have to go to all this trouble next time.
- Undo the couple of things that made this password reset trick work.
That's what we'll do over the next several steps.
The Windows 7 password reset procedure we just walked you through is perfectly safe but it isn't exactly "Microsoft approved." The only Microsoft sanctioned password reset procedure for Windows 7 involves using a password reset disk.
Unfortunately, this wasn't an option in your original situation because you have to have access to Windows 7 under your account to create one of these disks. In other words, it's a proactive step. Now that you can access Windows 7 normally, you can create one and never be caught in a situation like this again.
See How Do I Create a Windows Password Reset Disk? for a complete tutorial.
Open that link up in a new window or bookmark it for later but please remember to do it! You only have to make a password reset disk once. It'll still be good no matter how many times you change your Windows 7 password and it's much easier to use than the procedure you just followed to reset your password this time.
In the next several steps of this walkthrough is where we'll undo the hack that allowed you to reset the password. Undoing the changes we made will not undo the password change.
To reverse the changes you've made, you'll need to again access Command Prompt via your Windows 7 media.
Here's a quick summary in case you forgot:
- Insert your bootable Windows 7 media.
- Choose Next.
- Select Repair your computer.
- Wait while Windows is found on your hard drive.
- Select Windows 7 and then Next.
- Choose Command Prompt.
If you need more detailed help, this summary is referring to Steps 1 through 6 in this walkthrough, which you can reference again.
Do I Really HAVE to Undo These Changes?
No, no one says you have to. However, we strongly suggest that you do, for two reasons:
- Having access to Command Prompt from the login screen is a major security concern. If anyone finds out that Command Prompt is accessible this way, he or she could very easily change your password to access your account and delete your most important files, among other serious things. Reversing the changes you made removes this easy access.
- The Ease of Access tools that are supposed to show up when you select that button on the login screen are there for a good reason. You never know when you, or another person using your computer, might need to take advantage of them.
Hopefully, you decide to take a few extra minutes and complete the next steps.
With Command Prompt now open, type the following command exactly as shown and then press Enter:
copy d:\utilman.exe d:\windows\system32\utilman.exeAs with the previous commands, there are only two spaces here, between copy and d:\ and between exe and d:\. Remember to change the d: to whatever drive Windows 7 is installed on if you need to, just like you may have done in Step 7.
After pressing Enter, you're presented with the following question:
Type Y or Yes to confirm the overwrite and then press Enter. Assuming things went as planned, you should see the 1 file(s) copied. confirmation.
What you just did was copy the utilman.exe backup that you created using the first command in Step 7 back to its original location. In other words, you took things back to the way they were before you started this tutorial.
Now that you've restored the utilman.exe file to its rightful place, remove the Windows 7 disc or flash drive you booted from in Step 14.
Next, close the Command Prompt window and then select Restart at the bottom of the System Recovery Options window.
Wait while your computer restarts.
As we mentioned the last time you restarted after using your Windows 7 bootable media, you want your computer to start normally, so make sure the flash drive or disc has been removed.
Remember that little icon you clicked on back in Step 10? Select it again.
This time, however, instead of seeing Command Prompt, you should see the Ease of Access screen. This is the normal behavior of this button and seeing it confirms that you successfully reversed the changes you made to make this Windows 7 password reset hack work.
Congratulations! You're done!
You can now close the Ease of Access window and log in to Windows 7.
Please remember to create that password reset disk we talked about a few times. It's really easy to do and then makes it really easy to reset your Windows 7 password in the future. See How Do I Create a Windows Password Reset Disk? for help.
Did This Trick Not Work for You?
While this is one of the more successful password reset strategies for Windows 7, it's still possible that for some reason it didn't work out for you. See I Forgot My Windows 7 Password! for a list of your other options.
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