Hi,I am stuck.I have a user whohas brought in their home laptop which is running Vista Home Premium. Due to reasons beyond their control, they have forgotten their password. Due to similar reasons, it would appear they have not:1) Set themselves a password reminder2) Made themselves a password reset diskI have tried rebooting into safe mode in the hope that I could use the hidden administrator account to remove/change their password. However, it turns out that the account in question IS the administrator account.How do I reset their password in this instance, or should I just tell them to rebuild their machine?

The easiest solution would be to use a password recovery tool to reset the password.There are a few that are available1. Ultimate boot CD http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/2. ERD Commander (Now part on Wininternals owned by Microsoft) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5D600369-0554-4595-8AB4-C34B2860E087&displaylang=en3. Various Linux Boot CDsThe ERD Commander is a a trial version, but should work.Any of these should let you boot from the cd and reset the password without ever knowing it.

Aardware said: Hi,I am stuck.I have a user whohas brought in their home laptop which is running Vista Home Premium. Due to reasons beyond their control, they have forgotten their password. Due to similar reasons, it would appear they have not:1) Set themselves a password reminder2) Made themselves a password reset diskI have tried rebooting into safe mode in the hope that I could use the hidden administrator account to remove/change their password. However, it turns out that the account in question IS the administrator account.How do I reset their password in this instance, or should I just tell them to rebuild their machine? See:http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-us/help/66b61e8e-341d-453b-9edd-234301dfd7e51033.mspx"What to do if you forget your Windows password". [If this post helps to resolve your issue, click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]Vincenzo Di Russo - Microsoft MVP Windows Internet Explorer, Windows Desktop Experience & Security - Since 2003

Hi Vincenzo,I was wondering if you have actually read my post?I am going to try MSDaRT 6.0 from MDOP from my technet subscription first, if that doesn't work I will try Spenceations answer (we have tried an old version of ERD but it didn't pick up the vista drive).

If those don't work this page has a good list of the available password recovery tools:http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm#20I have used the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor on Vista to resest a password before.It should work as long as the drive doesn't use Encryption.

Brian Jones MCDST MCITP MCTS said: Hi Vincenzo,I was wondering if you have actually read my post?[...]Sorry, Brian.Vincenzo Di Russo - Microsoft MVP Windows Internet Explorer, Windows Desktop Experience & Security - Since 2003

No worries, we all do it, lol

MSDaRT 6.0 cracked it, easy as you can get. I am sure spenceations suggestions would have worked equally as well though, had I not had access to MSDaRT. Thanks all for your input!

Brian Jones MCDST MCITP MCTS said: MSDaRT 6.0 cracked it, easy as you can get. I am sure spenceations suggestions would have worked equally as well though, had I not had access to MSDaRT. Thanks all for your input!Great. Glad you got it resolved, Brian.Vincenzo Di Russo - Microsoft MVP Windows Internet Explorer, Windows Desktop Experience & Security - Since 2003