Windows 7: Recover/Clear Windows 7 Admin Password

Hi all,
I'm having a bit of difficulty with something. I have two accounts on my computer, a Admin and a local user account under my name. I have forgotten the password that I put on the admin account and now I need to download Microsoft Office and it is not allowing me to do so because it requires that I have administrator privileges.

So I need to clear out the password, or make my standard user account an administrator account.



Can someone help me? Thanks!

Welcome to SF!

While password hacking techniques will not be discussed here, there are other things to try.

Reboot the computer into safe mode, and log into the built-in administrator account. Then change the password for your admin account.

Thanks for your assistance, I logged into safe mode and the built in admin account is not enabled, when I try to enable it through local group policy, it does not allow me to do because of administrator privileges. So I'm in a bit of a bind here.

Here you go:

Boot the 7 dvd , or select Repair my computer from advanced boot menu.

Go to cmd prompt.

Type:

diskpart

lis vol

( get the drive letter of your 7 partition - it may be different from there - I will use y: , obviously replace y with the correct letter )

exi

cd /d y:\windows\system32

ren magnify.exe oldmagnify.exe

ren cmd.exe magnify.exe

close cmd prompt.

Boot to login screen, click accessibilty icon at bottom left, and select magnifier. Cmd will pop up., type:

net user administrator /active:yes

reboot. At login screen click the new Admin logo and get straight in. Go to System32 and rename those files - scroll down to magnify.exe rt click and rename to cmd.exe, then rename oldmagnify.exe back to magnify.exe

Go to user accounts and clear/change your old admin acct password.

Press ctrl+alt+del and logoff.

Login your old admin acct, open an elevated cmd and type:

net user administrator /active:no