Do a Windows 7 Password Reset

There are two ways for resetting the password for a standard user account password. If you still know what your existing password is, you can log in to your user account and make the changes from there. On the other hand, you can use the administrator login if you have forgotten your password. Here's how.

Use Your Standard User Account

1. 1
   Method 1

    

   1. Push the buttons Ctrl + Alt + Del on your keyboard at the same time and let it go. When the options show, click on "Change a password".
      
   2. By default, your user account name will show on the first box. Enter the necessary information on the next three boxes and click on the arrow button to continue. You're password has been changed. You can now continue using your computer.
      

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2. 2
   Method 2

    

   1. On the home screen, click on the "Start" button and go to "Control Panel".
      
   2. Click on "User Accounts and Family Safety".
      
   3. Select "Add or remove user accounts".
      
   4. Click on the account you want to work on.
      
   5. Click on "Change the password". You can also remove the password if you wish by clicking on the "Remove the password" option.
      
   6. Now type the new password in the first two boxes and your new hint (optional). Click on "Change password" on the lower right hand to finish. Your password has now been changed. Restart your computer and login using your new password.
      

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Use the Administrator Account

This procedure applies to those who have forgotten the password for their standard user account and has no way of doing the first two methods that were provided.

1. 1
   Make sure that you are logged in to the user account that has the administrator rights

   .

   On the home screen, click on the "Start" button and go to "Control Panel".

   

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2. 2
   Click on "User Accounts and Family Safety".

   

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3. 3
   Click on "User Accounts".

   

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4. 4
   Select "Manage another account".

   

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5. 5
   Go to the user account you want to work on and click on "Change the password"

   .

   You may also remove the password if you wish.

   

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6. 6
   Enter the new password in the first two boxes and a new hint (optional) then click "Change password" on the bottom right

   .

   You may now restart the computer and log in to your account using the new password.

   

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If you only have a single user account on the computer and has no password reset disk, this is the option that you can try on to reset your administrator password.

Bypass Administrator Password Using Command Prompt

This procedure may not be easy for beginners. You can ask assistance from someone who can help you perform the following steps to make sure that there will be no incorrect changes that could accidentally be made on the computer.

1. 1
   Restart your computer and keep on pressing the F8 key as soon as it starts up to go to Windows Advance Options Menu

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   To make sure it will open, as soon as you click on "Restart", and start pressing the F8 button. If you are not able to press the F8 key on the first second that it starts up, Windows Advance Options Menu will not open and the normal operating system will boot up instead. After a few seconds, you will see these options. Use your arrow keys to highlight "Safe Mode with Command Prompt" and press enter.

   

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2. 2
   When the computer completely loads up, click on the start button and type in "cmd"

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   On the results, click "cmd.exe". This should result on the very top.

   

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3. 3
   The cursor will automatically be on the upper part of the box

   .

   Type "net user" beside it (see red label) and press Enter. All the user accounts on the computer will show (see yellow label).

   

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4. 4
   Check the name of the administrator account on the list and type it on the next line with the command "net user"

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   For this example, it is "net user dagz". Press Enter after typing it in.

   

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5. 5
   The administrator account information will display

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   On the next line, type in "net user *". The password options will now show.

   

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6. 6
   On the next line, type in "net user username *"

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   For this example, I typed in "net user dagz *". Press Enter and you will now be prompted to enter a password for it. You will not be asked for the existing one so you are free to use the password you know you can remember. Important: The characters that you will type will not show on the command prompt. Be careful in typing it in so you will not repeat the same characters. If the passwords do not match, it will ask you to enter them again. After typing the password on the first line, press enter and re type the password. After pressing enter, the command prompt will show The command completed successfully. This means that the password is now changed.

   

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7. 7
   If you want to make sure that you won't have any problems of possibly entering the password incorrectly, you can use the command "net user username/random"

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   For this example, I typed in "net user dagz/random". This will generate a random password for the administrator account. Make sure that you take note of this password and change it later on. Refer to the Reset A Standard User Account Password section to see how.

   

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8. 8
   After all the steps are performed, restart your computer and login using the password you have set or the random password provided.

   

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1. 1
   Do not include any of your personal information in your password

   .

   You never know who has intentions on accessing your personal files. Including your personal information such as your name, birthday, favorite food, your children's name and the likes will make it easy for someone to guess what your password is since we usually share these thing to the people around us.

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2. 2
   Passwords must be eight characters or more

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   The longer the password is, the harder for someone to guess what it is. You have to ensure though that the password that you want to use is something that you will always remember.

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3. 3
   Use special characters

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   This will help in making a password strong and hard to guess. You can include at least one special character such as a period (.), and the at sign (@).

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4. 4
   Changing your password on a regular basis will also prevent unauthorized access on the account

   .

   This way, no one can keep track of your original password.

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If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.

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