What to do if you forgot Windows 10 password and don’t have a password reset disk? This happens even for the most savvy computer users. In this tutorial we’ll show you a simple way to reset forgotten Windows 10 password for free. This method works by adding a local admin account so you can recover access to your files, no matter you’ve forgotten the password of a local account or a Microsoft account.
How to Reset Forgotten Windows 10 Password without Reset Disk?
Boot your problematic Windows 10 computer from a Windows 10 Installation DVD. When you see the message “Press any key to boot from CD or DVD” on the screen, just press any key to let the computer boot from CD instead of hard drive.
Windows 10 Setup will greet you and prompt you to configure your language settings. Press Shift + F10 to open a Command Prompt.
Replace the file utilman.exe with cmd.exe. Before you do this, you should rename utilman.exe so that you can restore it later after password reset.
ren d:\windows\system32\utilman.exe utilman.exe.bak
copy d:\windows\system32\cmd.exe d:\windows\system32\utilman.exe
Note: If you get the error message “The system cannot find the specified path“, it’s likely that d:\ is not the drive letter of the partition where Windows 10 is installed.
Close the Command Prompt and quit the Windows 10 Setup. Next click Yes to confirm that you want to cancel the Windows 10 installation.
Restart your computer and remove the DVD. When you get to the Windows 10 sign-in screen, click the Ease of Access icon in the lower-right corner.
You should see a Command Prompt where you can enter the following commands to add a local administrator account. Replace test with the account name of your choice.
net user test /add
net localgroup administrators test /add
Close the Command Prompt and reboot the computer. When you come back to Windows 10 sign-in screen again, your new account should show up and you can login without a password.
Once logging in, you have full access to all files on your computer and reset the password of any user account from the Control Panel. It’s that simple!