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!

Jonathan_King said:

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