It is possible to use this procedure for most versions of Windows, which includes Windows NT 3.51, NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista 32-bit (Home and Ultimate) and Windows Vista 64-bit. If you are using pre-NT versions of Windows such as Windows 98, you can try deleting your .PWL (Password List) file.

Their may be exceptions and you shouldn’t rely on having this option to fall back on. From personal experience, I have worked on computers where a user lost a password in Windows Vista and this can be a bit hard resolve. Unless you plan on losing data and starting over with a clean Windows installation, remember your password!

You will need to download the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor boot disk from http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/. Near the bottom of the site is a link to a Bootable CD Image. Download the file.

You will then need to burn the image to a CD using your CD burning software. Open the file that you downloaded and extract the contents to a folder on your computer. Do not simply burn the extracted file to a CD as this will not work. In your CD burning software you will need to find the option to burn an image to a CD.

Once you have burned the image to a CD you will have to insert the CD and restart your computer. If you have burned the image correctly, your computer should automatically boot to the CD (or ask you to press a key during startup). You will see a lot of information on the screen, but you can ignore that. When the software has finished starting up, there are several options to select.

The default options will typically work and you can press enter for the default option at those prompts. What you are going to do is remove your administrator password and replace it with a blank password.

Continue pressing ENTER at the prompts until you reach a prompt that asks which user you want to edit and select the ADMIN or ADMINISTRATOR account. Or you can alternatively select your own account. Then there is an option to create a blank password, which is what you will need to do. Then you will need to save the changes. From there you can restart your computer and try it out.

After you are finished remove the CD from the drive, restart the computer (reset button or CTRL+ALT+DEL), login as Administrator and leave the password blank to login.

Note: I do not recommend using this software on any computer other than your own as it can either get you fired or result in prosecution. It is safe and legal to use on your own computer (unless you do something wrong and screw something up). On the other hand, it can be used for illegal purposes such as getting into a computer which you should not have access to, so do not attempt this!

I do not provide a detailed explanation of this process on my site, because I don’t want anyone using it for illegal purposes. Keep the disk in your home where it is legal!