Reset a forgotten password in Windows 10? This is how!

If you like it Forgot your Windows 10 password?, then you can reset this in a roundabout way.

It happens to everyone that the password of a user account in Windows 10 is forgotten. If this is the password of the account you use to log in to Windows 10, this is extra annoying.

There is a way to gain access to your PC via a Windows 10 user account. You can read how in this article.

Please note that this workaround only works on a Windows 10 PC with a local user account. If you have only linked a Microsoft account, this will not work. If you forgot the password to log in to Windows 10 with a Microsoft account, you can reset it online.

Reset a forgotten password in Windows 10

To start with, you should create installation media on a USB stick. Use this Windows 10 installation media on USB to install the boot computer from USB.

If the PC has successfully booted from the newly created installation media on USB. You will then see the “Windows Setup” screen below.

When you see this screen, press the SHIFT + F10 key combination. A command prompt window will now open.

Enter the following commands, in the order shown below.

1. C: \
2. cd windows\system32\
3. run utilman.exe utilman.exe.bak
4. run cmd.exe utilman.exe
5. wpeutil reboot

Your computer will now boot back to the Windows 10 login screen. Now click on “Accessibility” at the bottom right.

Because we renamed utilman.exe to cmd.exe, the Command Prompt now opens. In the command prompt window type the command below to do it enable hidden administrator account.

net user administrator /active:yes

Now click on the power icon at the bottom right and click on “Restart”.

Once again, Windows 10 will boot to the login screen. At the bottom left you will now see the Administrator account. Click on it to log in with this account. No password is required.

Once you are logged in, right-click on the Start button. In the menu, click on “Computer Management”.

In computer management, click on “Local users and groups” on the left. Then click on “Users” again.

Here you see it local user account whose password you have forgotten. Right-click on it and click “Set Password”.

Enter a new password twice.

Now log out with the administrator account and log in with the local user account for which you initially forgot the password and recently changed it.

If you can successfully log in with the local user account, you can access the PC again. Now we will rename the previous rename actions of files via the installation media and disable the administrator account again.

Restart the PC with the previously created Windows 10 installation media on USB. When you return to the “Windows Setup” screen, press SHIFT + F10 to open the Command Prompt.

Enter the following commands, in the order shown below.

1. cd c:\windows\system32\
2. c:
3. run utilman.exe cmd.exe
4. run utilman.exe.bak utilman.exe
5. net user administrator / active: no
6. wpeutil reboot

Once the PC has restarted, you can regain access to the Windows 10 PC with the local user account for which you forgot the password. Please note that if the account is encrypted with BitLocker, you will need the BitLocker password to decrypt the data. Otherwise you will lose access to the user account.

I hope this helped you. Thank you for reading!