User Account Password - Change from WinRE

How to Change the User Account Password if Unable to Login to Windows​

   Information

This tutorial will help you remove the existing user account password and set up a new password incase you have forgotten the user password using WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment)

Here's how:
1. Boot to WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment).

2. Click on the Command Prompt option.



3. Type the following commands and press enter after each one:

• C:
• CD Windows\system32
• ren cmd.exe cmd.old
• ren magnify.exe cmd.exe
• ren cmd.old magnify.exe

4. Restart computer.

5. Click on Easy of Access centre left side bottom à Choose Magnify option.


6. A Command prompt opens up

7. Type: net user administrator /active:yes and press enter.

8. Restart the computer.

9. Logon on to the "Administrator" account, and then using User Accounts page in the Control Panel, remove or change the password of the other account.

10. Type Magnify.exe in Start Menu search box and press enter and open it.

11. Command prompt opens up

12. Type: net user administrator /active:no and press enter.

13. Restart the computer
NOTE: This will disable the administrator account.

14. Now, Boot to winRE again, and click on the Command Prompt option.



15. Type the following commands and press enter after each one:

• C:
• CD Windows\system32
• ren magnify.exe cmd.old
• ren cmd.exe magnify.exe
• ren cmd.old cmd.exe
• exit

16. Restart the computer – system logs on to the User account without asking for password provided there is only one user account.
That's it.
Special thanks for iseeuu for providing the screenshots.

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Change the Password for Your or Another User Account in Windows 7
• How to Create a Password for a Windows 7 User Account
• How to Add or Remove Change Password from the CTRL+ALT+DEL Screen
• How to Create a Windows 7 Password Reset Disk
• How to Use System Restore to Change User Account Password
• How to Reset the Password of a User Account in Windows 7
• How to Enable or Disable Password must meet Complexity Requirements
• How to Enable or Disable Password Expiration for a User in Windows 7
• How to Change the Maximum and Minimum Password Age in Windows 7
• How to Enable or Disable Windows 7 Password History Enforcement
• How to Change the Time to Warn a User to Change Password Before Expiration
• Reset your Windows Password in Regedit at Boot
• How to Enable the Built-in Administrator Account from WinRE
• How to Remove the Password for Your or Another User Account in Windows 7
• How to Create, Change, and Use a Password Hint in Windows 7

 

[Dinesh]

Hi, please read the 5th and 6th point in the tutorial on the first page. It answers your question. The idea here is to click on magnify.exe file and instead open the command prompt.

 

[RickL1]

Thanks, This tutorial just helped me out and saved me from a lot of frustration.

This at the end of a long day, so I had to think a while about what is happening in steps 3 and 15 to make sure I understood it. I will suggest a little different approach that doesn't wipe out the use of cmd.exe while logged in as Administrator and straightening things out.

3.
c:
cd \windows\system32
ren magnify.exe magnify.exe.orig
copy cmd.exe magnify.exe
exit


15.
c:
cd \windows\system32
copy magnify.exe.orig magnify.exe answer y to overwrite existing file
(note: you can either delete magnify.exe.orig or leave it there as a backup)
exit

Rick

 

[Mukramuddin1008]

Great Job Dinesh....!!!

 

[Dinesh]

Great Job Dinesh....!!!

Thanks.

 

[MirzaAsad]

Hey Dinesh will you please ellaborate "step 9" with a little bit more detail by provding screen shots.
Step 9 says 'logon on to the "Administrator" account' how could i logon to the account since i don't know the pasword.....................

I'll be very thankful to you for solving my confusion.

 

[Brink]

Hello MirzaAsad,

Step 9 is to log on to the built-in "Administrator" account that you just enabled in the previous steps.

If the built-in Administrator account is the one you don't know the password for, then this tutorial is not going to be able to help with that. You'll need to talk to the owner of the account for that.

 

[MirzaAsad]

Brink,
But the title of this thread says "How to Change the User Account Password if Unable to Login to Windows".As obvious form the title of this tutorial, it should guide us to login to your windows admin account if you are unable to access your account but i think i'm mistaken.
Just for sake of my curiosity, what exactly this tutorial is trying to convey,please elaborate.

 

[Brink]

MirzaAsad,

The tutorial is designed to show you how to reset your user account's password when you are unable to log on to Windows. Steps 1 to 7 show you how to enable the built-in Administrator account at boot, so you could log on to it in Windows to use to change or reset your user account's password.

The built-in elevated "Administrator" account is not the same as your normal non-elevated administrator user account.

Hope this helps.

 

[MirzaAsad]

Brink,

Tell you what you are one awesome man.Got your point and thanks very much for your help.
Love you.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome MirzaAsad.

 

[genekanze]

Great articles. Works well on windows 7 home premium but not on windows 7 professional. The ren ..... does not work and will still open the narrator when you restart the system. Any solution for windows 7 professional ?

 

[RickL1]

Hello genekanze,
I recently ran into this situation too, although working toward a slightly different end. To solve the problem you describe just boot to an operating system that can work with the filesystem on your computer. Most likely your filesystem will be NTFS. I like Knoppix as "the other" operating system, and is what I had available as a bootable "Live CD". After using Knoppix to do the ren and copy commands then I went back to the tutorial instructions. To use Knoppix, or a similar UNIX based operating system, you do need a bit of familiarity with that operating system.
Rick

 

[princexyryl]

before I can go to RECOVERY OPTIONS and select COMMAND PROMT,,.... I HAVE TO """Select your user name and type in the password, and then click on OK."""

but I forgot my password right????

 

[Brink]

before I can go to RECOVERY OPTIONS and select COMMAND PROMT,,.... I HAVE TO """Select your user name and type in the password, and then click on OK."""

but I forgot my password right????

Hello princexyryl,

If you boot directly from your retail Windows installation media to get to recovery options, then you will not need to enter your password.

 

[sjeccles]

Excellent fix. Works perfectly (plus the CMD <-> Magnify rename is a very satisfying hack ). Thanks, Dinesh.

 

[Dinesh]

Glad to know it helped

 

[Zyre]

I get to step 3 and can't go further. Command prompt window shows "X:\System32". I type "C:" and it gives me C:>, but the entire directory is empty! I type C:\ DIR, to verify and yes, it's empty. So I go back to "X:\System32" and rename the cmd.exe file, fine. However, there's no magnify.exe

Please advise.

 

[Zyre]

Strike that, I figured it out. Before you get to the screen showing your options, it searches for previous versions of installed windows. Note the drive letter ( in my case, drive D: ).

Once I was in the command prompt, of course it showed X:\Windows\System32. Even if I did a CD D:, it would go right back to X:.

No problem, all I did was add the full drive and path before the recommended commands, and all worked. So here's what my commands looked like:

• ren D:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe cmd.old
• ren D:\Windows\System32\magnify.exe cmd.exe
• ren D:\Windows\System32\cmd.old magnify.exe

Everything worked great.

 

[jumbovideo]

Strike that, I figured it out. Before you get to the screen showing your options, it searches for previous versions of installed windows. Note the drive letter ( in my case, drive D: ).

Once I was in the command prompt, of course it showed X:\Windows\System32. Even if I did a CD D:, it would go right back to X:.

No problem, all I did was add the full drive and path before the recommended commands, and all worked. So here's what my commands looked like:

• ren D:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe cmd.old
• ren D:\Windows\System32\magnify.exe cmd.exe
• ren D:\Windows\System32\cmd.old magnify.exe

Everything worked great.

That's so awesome, I had troubles using the codes from this guide until i saw your post and gave it a try. And it worked!! Thanks man! You saved my life : )

 

[gzt7d8]

I'm using a method similar to this to change a forgotten password in Vista. It looks like Win 7 and Vista are similar but I got to the point where I could launch the cmd prompt and was going to use the net user command to setup a temporary password to get into the account.

The problem I ran into is the username, as it is stored in the OS, is different than the full name. So my question is what would the stored name be for a full name, say Mut & Jeff? Does Windows 7/Vista only store the first 4 positions, and so in this case the username would be Mut? Or is it a different variation?

I tried with and without spaces, used a underscore where the spaces were located.

Thanks,
Greg