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I setup a image box of Vista Business to ghost a couple of weeks ago. I turned it on today and I seem to have forgotten the password. I've tried using OPH-Crack to crack it but with no luck. Does anybody have software that they use to crack user account passwords or know of a work-around for Vista?

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4 Answers 4

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The best approach, which I have tried successfully, is the Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset: MS MDOP page

available through Software Assurance or Technet. Formerly known as ERD Commander 2005, this was absorbed by Microsoft when they bought Wintenals.

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You should try your common passwords with and without caps-locks on. You could try L0phtCrack, but it's a longshot.

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This happened to me, too. I was trying to take the whole Windows Security thing seriously, and managed to mistype my password the same way in the password and confirmation boxes. My solution then was to keep retyping my password as fast as I could, and I eventually hit on the right combination of sloppy keystrokes ;)

On a more serious note, the official word from Microsoft is:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/66b61e8e-341d-453b-9edd-234301dfd7e51033.mspx

...which boils down to 'make a password reset disk'. You can enter a new password, but you will 'lose access to its encrypted files, e‑mail messages that are encrypted, and stored passwords for websites or network resources.'

You could also try a third-party reset utility, such as the Offline NT Password and Registry editor: I have not tried it on Vista, but it worked fine on my XP box back in the day, and claims that it now supports Vista. Website:

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

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It's a long shot, but try "John the Ripper" from insecure.org. If you have admin, just go to UAC and change the password. If not, just ask to borrow someones account to fix the one you forgot the password to. Or, yet again, as admin, just steal the files and put them in a new different account to which you can create a new password for. Tell me if you need a more detailed walkthrough.