Do a Windows 7 Password Reset
Edited by Geraldin Carniyan, Eng, Lynn, Alma
Forgot your password?? You must be in trouble! Almost everything such as emails, online banking and even your personal computer requires a password. We store information on our computers that are very important and private so we secure it with a password.
This is why the dilemma of not being able to log in to our computers due to incorrect password brings so much frustration. I can just imagine how panicked I would become if I was unable to check my emails, pay my bills online and, most importantly, report to work when I get locked out of my computer. If you are experiencing that problem right now, we will help you resolve it. We will provide you information and steps that will be very useful to reset the password of your Windows 7 computer in case you forget it.
Set a Windows 7 Password
To protect your computer from unauthorized access, you must set a password to it. Here are the steps on creating a password for your Windows 7 user account.
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Creating a Password Reset Disk
What is a Password Reset Disk?
Password Reset Disk is a tool that you can use to create a new password in case you forget the existing one. This work It is strongly recommended that you create this after setting up the password for your Windows user account. Here are the steps.
- 1What you need
- A USB Flash Drive or a Floppy Disk
- 2Procedure
- Insert your USB flash drive or floppy disk in your computer and click on the "Start" button. Type "user" in the search box and click on "User Accounts" displayed on the results.
- Under User Accounts, click on "Create a password reset disk" on the left hand side.
- The Forgotten Password Wizard will appear. Click "Next" to continue and select where you want to save your password reset disk tool before clicking on "Next".
- On the next screen, type your password and click "Next". When the progress bar shows that the process is complete, click "Next" and click "Finish" on the last box.
Reset Your Administrator Password Using Password Reset Disk
If you have created a Password Reset Disk, you can use it to reset your password without providing the existing one. Here are the steps.
- 1Click on "OK" to go back to the password field.If you have entered an incorrect password, this message will appear.
Reset A Standard User Account Password
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
- 1Method 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".
- 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.
- 2Method 2
- On the home screen, click on the "Start" button and go to "Control Panel".
- Click on "User Accounts and Family Safety".
- Select "Add or remove user accounts".
- Click on the account you want to work on.
- Click on "Change the password". You can also remove the password if you wish by clicking on the "Remove the password" option.
- 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.
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.
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Reset administrator password without a Password Reset Disk
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.
- 1To 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.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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- 6For 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.On the next line, type in "net user username *".
- 7For 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.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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Tips on Creating a Strong Password
- 1You 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.Do not include any of your personal information in your password.
- 2The 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.Passwords must be eight characters or more.
- 3This 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 (@).Use special characters.
- 4This way, no one can keep track of your original password.Changing your password on a regular basis will also prevent unauthorized access on the account.
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.