Locked out of w7 pro 64 bit

[Nancy]

Hello. I'm new to w7 and I'm afraid I've made quite a beginner's mistake -

I have a w7 pro 64bit machine I removed from the domain in order to
change the local admin password to send the machine in for service. But
the local admin account was disabled. I managed to enable it, but it
does not have a blank password or any password I would have assigned to
it as it will not let me log in with anything I can think of to try.
Can I reset the local admin password through the recovery console or
something? Thanks.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Hello. I'm new to w7 and I'm afraid I've made quite a beginner's mistake -

I have a w7 pro 64bit machine I removed from the domain in order to
change the local admin password to send the machine in for service. But
the local admin account was disabled. I managed to enable it, but it
does not have a blank password or any password I would have assigned to
it as it will not let me log in with anything I can think of to try.
Can I reset the local admin password through the recovery console or
something? Thanks.

If you didn't create a password reset disk, you'll have to track down
some third party password resetting software. I have no idea whether any
such software exists for free or at a reasonable price.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hello. I'm new to w7 and I'm afraid I've made quite a beginner's
mistake -

I have a w7 pro 64bit machine I removed from the domain in order to change
the local admin password to send the machine in for service. But the
local admin account was disabled. I managed to enable it, but it does not
have a blank password or any password I would have assigned to it as it
will not let me log in with anything I can think of to try. Can I reset
the local admin password through the recovery console or something?
Thanks.

You may be able to use the recovery console to invoke System restore to
revert to a time when the machine was on the domain, and reset the passwords
from within the user account.

For example,
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/windows-7/forgot-lost-administrator-password-windows-7/


But If you're going to consider resetting the password from outside the
account, you must also be aware of the risk that this will likely also
instantly lock you out of any files or folders encrypted with the native
encryption scheme, unless you have the keys backed up and on hand.

 

[ray]

Hello. I'm new to w7 and I'm afraid I've made quite a beginner's
mistake -

I have a w7 pro 64bit machine I removed from the domain in order to
change the local admin password to send the machine in for service. But
the local admin account was disabled. I managed to enable it, but it
does not have a blank password or any password I would have assigned to
it as it will not let me log in with anything I can think of to try. Can
I reset the local admin password through the recovery console or
something? Thanks.

Last time I checked which, admittedly, was some time ago, the Knoppix
Linux Live DVD had a utility to reset an MS admin password.

 

[Joe Morris]

Nancy wrote:

Why did you remove the machine from the domain? There's no need to do that
to either use or change a local account password unless the domain is
imposing an unreasonably limiting GPO on the machine, in which case your
situation nicely demonstrates why it's not a good idea.

By default the local ADMINISTRATOR account is disabled in Windows 7. You
have to take explicit steps to enable it. (This can also be done by a GPO.)
There should be at least one additional local account that has local
administrator privileges.

One other possibility to consider: some organizations not only disable the
local Administrator account; they also rename it to something else, then
create a totally unprivileged local account named "ADMINISTRATOR" to serve
as a target for malware: even if the malware succeeds in hacking into that
account it has no privileges that can be exploited. The usable account with
local administrator rights will be something else.

How did you enable the account? If you were able to gain the right to do
that you should have had the right to change its password.


I'm guessing that the domain was at your place of work. Have you
talked to the IT staff there? It's not unlikely that they've run
into this problem repeatedly and have a tool they've tested and found
to work that will forcibly change the password.

If you didn't create a password reset disk, you'll have to track down
some third party password resetting software. I have no idea whether any
such software exists for free or at a reasonable price.

....and if you find a tool that does that, make certain that it's known to
work with Windows 7. Last fall I ran some tests of the old Winternals ERD
against 32-bit Windows 7; I've been using that tool for years when people
pull their XP systems out of the domain and don't know their local
administrator password...but it trashed the Win7 system. (The saving grace:
I was going to reformat the disk anyway so I lost nothing of interest.)

I wasn't completely surprised; even on XPSP3 the ERD frequently left the
volume dirty bit set, strongly suggesting that it didn't quite know how to
handle the latest tweaking of NTFS.

I've not had that happen again but I'm very leery of using tools that aren't
explicitly known to be compatible with Windows 7. I have a copy of DaRT in
house, but since we use 64-bit Win7 I'm stuck until Checkpoint finally
ponies up a 64-bit DaRT-compatible interface for the Pointsec full-disk
encryption tool.

Joe Morris

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Why did you remove the machine from the domain? There's no need to do that
to either use or change a local account password unless the domain is
imposing an unreasonably limiting GPO on the machine, in which case your
situation nicely demonstrates why it's not a good idea.

By default the local ADMINISTRATOR account is disabled in Windows 7. You
have to take explicit steps to enable it. (This can also be done by a GPO.)
There should be at least one additional local account that has local
administrator privileges.

One other possibility to consider: some organizations not only disable the
local Administrator account; they also rename it to something else, then
create a totally unprivileged local account named "ADMINISTRATOR" to serve
as a target for malware: even if the malware succeeds in hacking into that
account it has no privileges that can be exploited. The usable account with
local administrator rights will be something else.


How did you enable the account? If you were able to gain the right to do
that you should have had the right to change its password.



I'm guessing that the domain was at your place of work. Have you
talked to the IT staff there? It's not unlikely that they've run
into this problem repeatedly and have a tool they've tested and found
to work that will forcibly change the password.



...and if you find a tool that does that, make certain that it's known to
work with Windows 7. Last fall I ran some tests of the old Winternals ERD
against 32-bit Windows 7; I've been using that tool for years when people
pull their XP systems out of the domain and don't know their local
administrator password...but it trashed the Win7 system. (The saving grace:
I was going to reformat the disk anyway so I lost nothing of interest.)

I wasn't completely surprised; even on XPSP3 the ERD frequently left the
volume dirty bit set, strongly suggesting that it didn't quite know how to
handle the latest tweaking of NTFS.

I've not had that happen again but I'm very leery of using tools that aren't
explicitly known to be compatible with Windows 7. I have a copy of DaRT in
house, but since we use 64-bit Win7 I'm stuck until Checkpoint finally
ponies up a 64-bit DaRT-compatible interface for the Pointsec full-disk
encryption tool.

Joe Morris

Thanks for filling in the gaps, i.e., the majority of my post

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hello. I'm new to w7 and I'm afraid I've made quite a beginner's mistake -

I have a w7 pro 64bit machine I removed from the domain in order to
change the local admin password to send the machine in for service. But
the local admin account was disabled. I managed to enable it, but it
does not have a blank password or any password I would have assigned to
it as it will not let me log in with anything I can think of to try. Can
I reset the local admin password through the recovery console or
something? Thanks.

Somebody suggested this to me, and it's great. Super simple to use. Got
me out of a jam.

http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

Yousuf Khan

 

[Jeff Layman]

Last time I checked which, admittedly, was some time ago, the Knoppix
Linux Live DVD had a utility to reset an MS admin password.

At the start of the year my Win7HPx64 laptop refused to accept my password
the second time I tried to boot it. None of the hacker tools (including CD
roms based on linux) would work on a 64-bit setup. Fortunately I hadn't
done much customisation with the laptop and so just had to let it do a
default reinstall from the HD recovery partition. No problems since.

Can any of the hacker tools now recover a password from a Win7 64-bit system
or let you in to reset it?

 

[Dave-UK]

At the start of the year my Win7HPx64 laptop refused to accept my password
the second time I tried to boot it. None of the hacker tools (including CD
roms based on linux) would work on a 64-bit setup. Fortunately I hadn't
done much customisation with the laptop and so just had to let it do a
default reinstall from the HD recovery partition. No problems since.

Can any of the hacker tools now recover a password from a Win7 64-bit system
or let you in to reset it?

My disk can:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HLLPGQPB
It's not possible to recover a Win7 password, i.e. decypher it, but you
can delete the password or replace it.

 

[Nancy]

My disk can:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HLLPGQPB
It's not possible to recover a Win7 password, i.e. decypher it, but you
can delete the password or replace it.

Dave, your disc worked for me!

Thanks for getting me out of a real jam!

 

[Dave-UK]

Dave, your disc worked for me!

Thanks for getting me out of a real jam!

Excellent! Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Prescott]

Hello. I'm new to w7 and I'm afraid I've made quite a beginner's mistake -

I have a w7 pro 64bit machine I removed from the domain in order to
change the local admin password to send the machine in for service. But
the local admin account was disabled. I managed to enable it, but it
does not have a blank password or any password I would have assigned to
it as it will not let me log in with anything I can think of to try. Can
I reset the local admin password through the recovery console or
something? Thanks.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/passrecovery.htm

There are three good free programs. They are:

OPHCrack, http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

Offline NT Registry & Password Editor > http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/


BartsPE Password Editor > http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
and > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BartPE



Not all of them will work on all systems.

A gotcha to look out for is that although Offline NT Registry & Password
Editor has the capability to edit a password, they recommend that you
blank it. Blanking it is usually fine, but some systems will not let
you log in with a blank password. And Offline NT Registry & Password
Editor cannot edit a blank password. I says there is no room.

BartsPE Password Recovery can edit a blank password.