I suspect this is how most commercial “cracking” programs work. Another alternative is to load Linux from a “Live CD” or USB drive. The traditional approach was to interrupt the startup sequence, but you can also restart your PC from your Windows recovery DVD or a bootable USB thumb drive. Other methods of resetting a Windows admin password ultimately boil down to changing files on the hard drive before the admin account gets control. (Thanks to Windows 10, I’m temporarily out of Windows 8 PCs.) You can’t even see “Reset my PC” from a standard account on Windows 10, and fellow journalist Simon Bisson confirmed this was also the case on Windows 8.1. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can reset a Windows 8 PC from a standard user account. These don’t have a recovery partition, but they have a special system for rebuilding the operating system when required. This should be possible on all Windows 8 PCs that still have their recovery partition intact. However, if you are resetting the password from your standard account, then you will obviously be online.Īnother idea is to back up your data and then reset your PC to factory condition.

Your PC has to be online so that Microsoft can update the admin password on your laptop. If you did use a Hotmail, Live or account, you have a good chance of getting access to your admin account, by resetting your email account password from the Microsoft Account Password Reset page. You might even have written it down somewhere. Stephenĭid you set up the original administrator account using a Microsoft email address as your MSA (Microsoft Account), which is what I strongly recommend? If so, your logon password is the same as your email password, and this is something you might still remember. Please suggest a solution, as I would like to upgrade to Windows 10. The obvious thing I have not done is pay for some commercial cracking software, but I have no idea which (if any) are reputable and effective. It’s easy enough to back up our personal data, so I have considered a factory reset, but I am certain it is going to ask for an admin password. I’ve also tried some processes mentioned online, with no success. I’ve tried all of the obvious variations, which followed a pattern I used for my old iMac. Now I have simply forgotten the password. As recommended by many sources, I created separate user accounts for my wife and myself, and I have not needed to log in as admin for a while. I have an HP laptop running Microsoft Windows 8.

Lost administrator rights windows 7