Forgot the Administrator's Password?

Ok, so you say you forgot your Windows administrator's password, huh? Oh well, it doesn't really matter if you did or you just say you did. The fact is that you need to gain access to a computer and you cannot "remember" the administrator's password.
How can you get out of this situation without formatting and re-installing the operating system?
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One method of gaining access to the system is by trying hard to remember the forgotten password, or a password of another user which has the same level of administrative rights. However I don't think this approach will help you, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here reading article, would you?)
Another method is by trying to restore a backed up System State (in Windows 2000/XP/2003) or a ERD (in NT 4.0) in which you do remember the password. The problem with doing so is that you'll probably lose all of the recently add users and groups, and all the changed passwords for all of your users since the last backup was made.
A third method might be to install a parallel operating system on a different partition on the same computer, then use a simple trick to gain access to the old system.
Note: If you are looking for password cracking tools that can be used for miscellaneous objectives such as password-protected PDF documents, zipped archives, Office documents, BIOS protection and so on then this pages is NOT for you. See some links at the bottom of this page for hints on where to find such tools, but I can tell you right away that Google might be a better choice for you.
The fourth option is by using 3rd party tools that will enable you to reset the lost password and logon with a blank password.


Freeware Password Recovery Tools
Here are some of these tools:
Free Windows password-cracking tools are usually Linux boot disks that have NT file system (NTFS) drivers and software that will read the registry and rewrite the password hashes for any account including the Administrators. This process requires physical access to the console and an available floppy drive but it works like a charm! I've done it myself several times with no glitch or problem whatsoever.
Beware!!! Resetting a user's or administrator's password on some systems (like Windows XP) might cause data loss, especially EFS-encrypted files and saved passwords from within Internet Explorer. To protect yourself against EFS-encrypted files loss you should always export your Private and Public key, along with the keys for the Recovery Agent user. . Out of the following list, the only tool that will no cause any harm to EFS-encrypted files on your hard disk is the Windows Password Recovery system.

Download links:
· cd070409.zip (~3MB) - Bootable CD image with newer drivers
· bd050303.zip (~1.1MB) - Bootdisk image, date 050303.
· sc050303.zip(~1.4MB) - SCSI-drivers (050303) (only use newest drivers with newest bootdisk, this one works with bd050303)
To write these images to a floppy disk you'll need RawWrite2 which is included in the Bootdisk image download. To create the CD you just need to use your favorite CD burning program and burn the .ISO file to CD.
Support and Problems? Don't call me! Talk to the creator of this great tool. He also has a good FAQ set up covering most of the day-to-day questions. Read it right HERE
Author claims that this tool was successfully tested on NT 3.51, NT 4, Windows 2000 (except datacenter), Windows XP (all versions) and Window Server 2003. Notice that it is NOT compatible with Active Directory.