Sometimes you lose your password. Sometimes it gets corrupted somehow. Either way, you can’t log in to Windows again. This tutorial could help you get back in!
This may not work if you have bitlocker enabled and don’t have the key.
- Download Windows Media Creation tool from Microsoft. Use it to create a USB boot drive for your version of Windows.
- Turn off your PC and boot from the USB drive you just created.
- Click on Troubleshoot, then Advanced options and then Command Prompt.
- At the command prompt, type this:
copy c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe c:
After pressing enter, you should see a message about a file being copied. - Then type this:
copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe
After pressing enter, answer Y to the prompt to overwrite utilman.exe and you will see another message about a successful file copy. - Reboot your PC.
- When the Windows logon screen shows, click the “Accessibility” icon in the bottom right. It looks like a person doing jumping jacks.
- This should now open a command prompt with system rights. Type the following commands as needed.
net user (shows a list of users in case you can’t remember the username)
net user myusername newpassword (sets the myuser password to be newpassword)
net user myusername newpassword /add (creates a new user that didn’t exist before)
net localgroup administrators myusername /add (elevates myusername to a local admin) - Reboot and then try to login with the new password. It should work.
- It would be best to change the utilman back now. Reboot from the USB drive.
- Click on Troubleshoot, then Advanced options and then Command Prompt.
- At the command prompt, type this:
copy c:\utilman.exe c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe
After pressing enter, answer Y to the prompt to overwrite utilman.exe and you will see another message about a successful file copy.