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I have a Windows Vista (Home Premium) machine with a unique user for which the owner forgot the password. I have physical access to the machine.

I gave a try with the Ophcrack Live CD, but it couldn't find the password. Ophcrack showed me that two more hidden accounts exist (Administrator and Guest), with no password associated.

I tried to boot the machine in safe mode (with or without command prompt). Plenty of tutorials claim I should be able to select the Administrator account for login by using safe mode, but I still see the unique old user in the logon screen.

Is there a way I can login to this machine?

2 Answers 2

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Use the Offline NT Password and Registry Editor and reset (clear) the password.

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  • it always does ... and you're more than welcome :)
    – Molly7244
    Dec 22, 2009 at 14:42
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Boot from the Windows Vista DVD, choose Repair, and then either do a system restore, or go to a command prompt. The command prompt might let you do:

net user administrator /active:yes 

which should enable the administrator account.

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  • Don't have a Vista DVD. They didn't give it together with the laptop :( Dec 22, 2009 at 14:39
  • Aha - then log in and create a boot disk. Oh no. Wait. Err....
    – user22337
    Dec 22, 2009 at 14:58

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