Recover non-latin password

[nikosm]

Hello everybody,

I just received a call from my sister asking help with the following problem (I haven't used windows in years and wasn't much of a help to her, so I thought I should ask the experts ).

She cannot login to Windows 7 (Professional 64 bit) any more, and I trust her that it's not just that she misspells/forgot a password she uses daily. Her password consists of greek characters (not a wise choice, I know, and so does she now). The default keyboard layout on startup is normally greek and as far as she remembers a language choice button normally appeared on the bottom left (next to accessibility). This language choice button has somehow disappeared and she cannot login any more.

Assuming that the problem is that the default language somehow changed or that the keyboard layout choice is broken, is there any other way to type in the password or to reset it?

Some relevant info:

• no caps lock problem, no capitals or numerals, just plain unpunctuated greek characters in the password
• no password recovery disk was created, no recovery disk came with the computer (though there is a hidden partition to restore to factory state)
• there is only one user account (no guest)
• cycling through languages with Alt+Shift didn't help, several tries
• using on-screen keyboard (it's a tablet pc) didn't help
• third party password recovery software like ophcrack rely on latin (or at least german) characters, as far as I know.

I'm very grateful for any help!

Best regards,
Nikos

 

[Sardonicus]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/65207-password-reset-using-system-restore-windows-7-a.html

 

[nikosm]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/65207-password-reset-using-system-restore-windows-7-a.html

Thanks for the fast answer, it has been forwarded.

best regards,
Nikos