Soldato
- Joined
- 3 Jun 2005
- Posts
- 3,324
- Location
- The South
Hi all,
Unfortunately i'm having to deal with the death of my father and gaining accessing to his PC and emails, and being the man he was he never told anyone passwords, included them anywhere or added recovery information to accounts.
It's a Windows 10 Home system, doesn't appear to be Bitlocker'd and his login was linked to his Microsoft account which is still logged in. We've got access, whilst there's still power, but obviously attempting to get access to his stored browser passwords (in Edge; these don't appear to want to autofill anything) or add recovery information to his MS account is requiring his login/MS account password.
Only issue is, he liked to use BIOS passwords for his work systems and we're not entirely sure if he's done the same with his home system, which is currently stopping us from rebooting or booting to a live drive for recovery.
There is the 'utilman' method and i've seen some bootable apps like iSePassword, Hiren's etc but from what i've read it seems these are mostly aimed at local accounts rather than linked MS accounts.
Being mostly a Mac bloke these days and not having had to really deal with this side of Windows for a while, what options do we have? Can we easily retrieve his login password whilst it's logged in or is there a way to we can gain access to his MS account to add recovery details or reset the password?
Lastly, using the built-in Windows Outlook app, does anyone know if there's a way to easily forward all of his emails to another email address?
We've set up a rule to forward new mail but it seems everything has to be done one-by-one which will take an age given he has thousands of emails (various bank, policy etc details).
Appreciate any help
Edit - It seems potentially his Microsoft account has one of my email addresses for recovery (it's something); if i reset the password, does this change the password for his Windows login? Or, do we then just get access to his Microsoft/Outlook account and then we'd still need to find the password for Windows?
Edit 2 - TL;DR - Essentially we need a Windows password for the (Windows cloud/Microsoft/non-local) account as i'm thinking we could then potentially gain access to the saved passwords within Edge (it asks you for the Windows password when attempting to view them) where it appears there are a few stored 'live.com' credentials and in turn could give us to continued access to his Microsoft/Outlook email.
1) With the system still powered and logged in, is there a way to recover or reset the Windows (cloud/Microsoft) account password without knowing it and/or having no recovery options for the Microsoft account? There's the potential for a BIOS (boot) password so this is the preferred option.
2) If not, is there a way we can reset the Windows (Windows cloud/Microsoft/non-local) account password through a Live Boot util which could help us gain access to Edge's saved passwords?
FYI, i've taken a copy the data on the drive so that's not a problem, it's just continued access to his Outlook account, and potentially access to other stored passwords in Edge, would be extremely useful.
Unfortunately i'm having to deal with the death of my father and gaining accessing to his PC and emails, and being the man he was he never told anyone passwords, included them anywhere or added recovery information to accounts.
It's a Windows 10 Home system, doesn't appear to be Bitlocker'd and his login was linked to his Microsoft account which is still logged in. We've got access, whilst there's still power, but obviously attempting to get access to his stored browser passwords (in Edge; these don't appear to want to autofill anything) or add recovery information to his MS account is requiring his login/MS account password.
Only issue is, he liked to use BIOS passwords for his work systems and we're not entirely sure if he's done the same with his home system, which is currently stopping us from rebooting or booting to a live drive for recovery.
There is the 'utilman' method and i've seen some bootable apps like iSePassword, Hiren's etc but from what i've read it seems these are mostly aimed at local accounts rather than linked MS accounts.
Being mostly a Mac bloke these days and not having had to really deal with this side of Windows for a while, what options do we have? Can we easily retrieve his login password whilst it's logged in or is there a way to we can gain access to his MS account to add recovery details or reset the password?
Lastly, using the built-in Windows Outlook app, does anyone know if there's a way to easily forward all of his emails to another email address?
We've set up a rule to forward new mail but it seems everything has to be done one-by-one which will take an age given he has thousands of emails (various bank, policy etc details).
Appreciate any help
Edit 2 - TL;DR - Essentially we need a Windows password for the (Windows cloud/Microsoft/non-local) account as i'm thinking we could then potentially gain access to the saved passwords within Edge (it asks you for the Windows password when attempting to view them) where it appears there are a few stored 'live.com' credentials and in turn could give us to continued access to his Microsoft/Outlook email.
1) With the system still powered and logged in, is there a way to recover or reset the Windows (cloud/Microsoft) account password without knowing it and/or having no recovery options for the Microsoft account? There's the potential for a BIOS (boot) password so this is the preferred option.
2) If not, is there a way we can reset the Windows (Windows cloud/Microsoft/non-local) account password through a Live Boot util which could help us gain access to Edge's saved passwords?
FYI, i've taken a copy the data on the drive so that's not a problem, it's just continued access to his Outlook account, and potentially access to other stored passwords in Edge, would be extremely useful.
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