Windows 7: User Account Password - Remove

   Information

While it is strongly recommended to create a password for all user accounts on the computer to help prevent unauthorized access, sometimes you may just need to remove the password for a user account for whatever reason.

This will show you how to remove the password for either your user account, or for another user account through the Control Panel in Windows 7 and Vista.

   Note

If you remove the password of a user account that is set to be automatically logged on to at Windows 7 startup, then you will also need to change the password and leave it blank there for that user account.

   Warning

If you remove the password for another user account (OPTION TWO below), the other user account will lose access to its EFS encrypted files, personal certificates, and stored passwords for websites or network resources.

If the other user account doesn't have any of these, or doesn't mind losing them, then removing the password while logged in as an administrator is a fast and easy way to recover the other user account from say a forgotten password.

OPTION ONE

To Remove the Password for Your User Account in "User Accounts"

1. Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click on User Accounts.

2. Click on Remove your password. (see screenshots below)
NOTE: You will notice that your user account currently has Password protected under the name to indicate that it has a password.

3. Type in your current password that you created previously and click on the Remove Password button. (see screenshots below)

4. That's it. Close the User Accounts window. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You will notice that your user account no longer has Password protected under the name to indicate that the password has been removed.

OPTION TWO

To Remove the Password for Another User Account in "User Accounts"

1. Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click on User Accounts.

2. Click on Manage another account. (see screenshot below)

3. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes (Windows 7) or Continue (Vista)

4. Select the user account that you want to remove the password for. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You will notice that the user account currently has Password protected under the name to indicate that it has a password.

5. Click on Remove the password. (see screenshot below)

6. Click on the Remove Password button. (see screenshot below)

7. That's it. Close the Change an Account window. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You will notice that the user account no longer has Password protected under the name to indicate that the password has been removed.

OPTION THREE

To Remove the Password for Any User Account in Command Prompt

1. Open an elevated command prompt.

2. In the elevated command prompt, type the command below and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: Substitute UserName in the command below with the actual user name of the user account on the computer that you want to remove the password for.

net user UserName *


For example: My user account's name is Brink, so I would type this below exactly and press Enter.

net user Brink *

3. When prompted twice to enter a password, just press Enter twice to not enter a password. Doing this will remove the password instead of changing it. (see screenshot above)

4. If sucessfully removed, then you can close the elevated command prompt.