How to Reset Windows Password through WinRE (Windows Vista and Win 7 32 and 64bit)

 

I am sure atleast once in our life we may have faced this issue forgetting our windows login password and it's a pain if you have to actually go ahead with doing a complete format installation were you end losing all the data and s/w OR you do a parallel installation to try and save the data but you end up losing all the s/w which we can put it as NO PROFIT / NO LOSS situation. But I am sure you would like to know how to be in a WIN / WIN situation where you won't lose any S/W and Data  The below mentioned steps works for both windows vista and windows 7 (Please note that I would be putting Win7 Screen shot which is same as windows vista)  Alright let's get started

 

1) Turn on your computer Press F12 (1 time boot menu) as soon as the computer starts once you are on this screen Insert Window 7 DVD in the DVD Drive and select CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive and press ENTER

 

 

NOTE:- The Above shown screen shot is for 1 Time boot menu this screen have differ from manufacture to manufacture. If you have a different screen you may have to refer to you manufactures web site for the same.

 

2) If prompted, press any key to boot from the Windows 7 installation DVD. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You will only have about 8 seconds to press this key.

 

 

3. Select your language preferences and click on Next. (See screeshot below)

4. Click on Repair your computer. (See screenshot below)

5. Select which operating system you want to restore and the click on Next. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If Windows 7 is not listed here, or it is blank, then it is ok. Click on Next anyway.

  

 

6. Select the system recovery option you want to do. As we would be trying to activate the Administrative Account we need to click on Command Prompt.

7. In the command prompt, type regedit and press Enter. Registry Editor screen will pop-up

 

8. Click on HKEY_LOCALE_MACHINE (or HKEY_USERS - your choose. In this example I've chosen HKEY_LOCALE_MACHINE) .

 

 

 

9. Go to File menu and choose load hive option

it will open new window and in that navigate to drive where your OS is installed and go to <boot partition>\Windows\System32\config

in this example it is C:\Windows\System32\config

10. Choose SAM file and click Open

11.Next appear Key Name box,type the name whatever you want i.e REM_SAM

12. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\REM_SAM\SAM\Domains\Accounts\Users\000001F4 key and double click on string F,

it will open table with hexadecimal numbers

 

13. In this table find 11 number (8th line,first column in table -images),click to the right of it, press backspace and the 11 disappear and insert the 10 in this place

14. Close box,the whole regedit and restart computer.

15. Log on to build-in Administrator account and go to Control Panel > User Account > Click on the Account from which you would like to remove the Password and click on remove password