Gaining access to a laptop you don't know the pasword for?

NeilF · 18 Jan 2017 at 09:34

So my mother has forgotten the password to her Windows 10 laptop...

Anyone able to recommend a method of gaining access to it again? eg: Resetting its password?

It only has the one user (her) account, and it came pre-installed with Windows 10 so we don't have installation media. Infact the laptop doesn't even have a CD/DVD drive.

Holst1981 · 18 Jan 2017 at 09:38

Can you take the drive out, backup anything important then reformat?

You can download the win 10 (from ms) installer to an SD card and install from that.

Phate · 18 Jan 2017 at 09:40

http://www.howtogeek.com/222262/how-to-reset-your-forgotten-password-in-windows-10/

Hope this helps

NeilF · 18 Jan 2017 at 10:20

Phate said:
http://www.howtogeek.com/222262/how-to-reset-your-forgotten-password-in-windows-10/

Hope this helps

Don't think it's a Live account is instead just a local one...

lude1962 · 18 Jan 2017 at 10:28

has it got a win 10 recovery partition (Fxx at boot to restore)?

On Holiday · 18 Jan 2017 at 10:31

FWIW I've tried the utilman.exe method on a w10 local account and it just didn't work. Let me know if that works (or if anybody else has had success)

NeilF · 18 Jan 2017 at 10:34

lude1962 said:
has it got a win 10 recovery partition (Fxx at boot to restore)?

Possibly... It's a HP laptop so I suspect it came with one quite likely!?

Worse case I might just buy isunshares password recovert/reset tool for £10 or so if it just gets it done easily/quickly...

AHarvey · 18 Jan 2017 at 10:40

If it's a local account look up the sticky keys password hack. You'll need a USB stick with a linux live distro on it.

If you get in, you should make yourself an admin password too just in case

NeilF · 18 Jan 2017 at 10:58

AHarvey said:
If it's a local account look up the sticky keys password hack. You'll need a USB stick with a linux live distro on it.

If you get in, you should make yourself an admin password too just in case

This seems to talk through it using a Windows 10 install CD/USB to gain a CMD prompt to do the necessaries - http://www.top-password.com/blog/reset-windows-10-password-with-sticky-keys/

AHarvey · 18 Jan 2017 at 11:57

NeilFawcett said:
This seems to talk through it using a Windows 10 install CD/USB to gain a CMD prompt to do the necessaries - http://www.top-password.com/blog/reset-windows-10-password-with-sticky-keys/

Yep, I've used that guide a few times but never used a windows 10 USB. I've always got ubuntu on USB with me so it's just easier

As long as it's not a live account it's easy, sometimes you can struggle with getting the user name but test a few things and it'll work

NeilF · 18 Jan 2017 at 12:07

AHarvey said:
Yep, I've used that guide a few times but never used a windows 10 USB. I've always got ubuntu on USB with me so it's just easier

As long as it's not a live account it's easy, sometimes you can struggle with getting the user name but test a few things and it'll work

If it's anything like unix I couldn't go near it.

I hate unix with a passion.

Django x2 · 18 Jan 2017 at 19:22

Hirens boot CD (from USB) and then use the blank password option for that user. Takes 5 minutes.

NeilF · 18 Jan 2017 at 19:42

Django x2 said:
Hirens boot CD (from USB) and then use the blank password option for that user. Takes 5 minutes.

And it works with Windows 10?

Django x2 · 18 Jan 2017 at 22:29

Yes, as long as you don't have BitLocker in play. You just boot from USB > Offline NT Password Changer, chose partition, confirm registry, user data, type or chose the username (from the user hive), press 1 to blank the password and write back to the reg