Forgot your Windows Admin Account Password? Now what?

This issue has come up twice this week, once with a co-worker and just yesterday with a client.

Here is the best and easiest way to reset a Windows XP or Vista Password.

Your main tool: Trinity Rescue Kit 3.2

Download the latest Trinity Rescue Kit at: http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=5&front_id=12 (you can also click the title of this post)

I am still using the 3.2 Build 279.

The latest version is 3.3 Build 321, but I have not had a chance to play with it yet.

Note: Only download this tool from the TRK site or published mirrors. It is a good practice to validate the TRK ISO image file’s MD5 checksum with the published one to confirm the ISO image is genuine and safe!

After you have downloaded the ISO, burn it to a blank CD.
Note: the file is about 110MB in size.

The next step is to Boot up the troubled XP or Vista machine with the Trinity Rescue Kit CD-ROM. You may have to change your boot options from the bios setup.
After the Linux based tool completely loads into your physical memory you will see something like the image below.

(I’m sorry for the quality, I was in a rush and used my iPhone to snap the pic.)

Now this is the fun part:

At the command prompt next to [root@trk]: type “winpass –u Administrator”

*To reset a different account, just replace “Administrator” from the command above to the account name of your choice. If you notice on the image above, I reset the password for the account “Liz” which is the only administrative account on the Windows Vista Ultimate laptop.

The winpass command will then display something similar to:

Searching and mounting all file system on local machine
Windows NT/2K/XP installation(s) found in:
1: /hda1/Windows
Make your choice or ‘q’ to quit [1]:

In my case there is only 1 bootable disk found. Here you will type the number of the corresponding drive. Make a selection and press ENTER or just hit ENTER key to accept the default value of [1].

Next, it’s time to reset password of the specified Windows Vista or XP account.
You have the options of resetting the password to a new value, resetting it to a blank value or leaving it as it currently is.

Resetting the password to a blank value might work better than setting a new password! For this just type * (asterisk character) and hit the ENTER key. This will reset the password to a blank value for the specified Windows account.

Shortly you will receive a verification prompt: “Do you really wish to change it?” Type Y and press ENTER key at the message prompt.


CONGRATULATIONS, you have now reset a forgotten Windows Account password.

To quit the program and restart in Windows type “init 0”
TRK will automatically eject your CD-ROM Drive, remove the disk and boot into Windows.


ENJOY!