How to Recover a Windows 7 Administrator Password [5 Ways]

Ella Garcia Updated on Apr 14, 2022 7:20 PM

Hi, can you help me please? I can't remember the password in my HP laptop (Windows 7 Ultimate). It refuses to allow me to log-in. is there a way to recover it? Any ideas?

Maybe you picked one password that was just so complicated that you can't remember it; maybe a family member changed the password on the computer and didn't tell you the new passwords. Whatever the reason, forgetting the password to your Windows 7 account can be a big pain. But all is not lost, this article is intended to walk users resetting or recovering Windows 7 password without losing data on the system.

Option 1: Use a 3rd-party specialist

We put this method in NO.1 section since it can help you quickly recover password for Windows 7, and get you logged into system again. Getting a piece of third-party password recovery software for Windows 7 is the right way to go when all of your efforts to restore it has been unsuccessful.

1. Spower Windows Password Reset

There are various programs available by which you can recover Windows 7 password. The Spower Windows Password Reset is by far the easiest and most effective program we've tested. It's simple and easy to use that lets you create a password reset and quickly recover the lost password for Windows 7 system. It's beginner-Friendly, works with other Windows OS including Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows Vista, and XP. Editions comparison here.

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Download it and install on an accessible computer. Below are instructions on how to recover password on Windows 7 machine.

Launch the program, insert a blank CD/DVD or USB drive to the computer.
Click the "USB device" or "CD/DVD" button to create a password recovery disk. The process could take about one minute to complete.

Pop the disk into your locked Windows 7 computer. Start it.
Set your computer boot from the disk. You can follow the tutorial on how to set computer to boot from USB Drive or another article about how to set computer to boot from CD/DVD-ROM to accomplish it. Take it easy, this isn't hard.
Restart the computer and it will boot from the password recovery disk you just created. If everything passes, you should get a screen like this.

Click Windows 7 from the list, then choose what user account you want to recover password.
Click the Reset button. This Windows 7 password recovery tool will quickly detect the account and clear the password to blank (no password)
Reboot the computer, and take the disc or drive out.

That's it! Now you can access your Windows 7 machine without password.

2. Ophcrack - Recover Passwords for Windows 7

Ophcrack is yet another Windows 7 password crack utility that you can use to fix the problem. The entire process is simple: you just burn ISO image file of Ophcrack to a disc, boot from the drive to get the Ophcrack process started, locates the Windows user accounts, and proceeds to bypass the passwords. It's based on rainbow tables.

Head to Ophcrack's website, Click on "ophcrack Vista/7 LiveCD" button to download the ISO file of Ophcrack software on another computer that you have access to. It's about 649 MB.
Burn the Ophcrack LiveCD ISO file to a disc or USB flash drive. Don't know how to burn it? check the instructions here (for CD/DVD) and here (for USB) to learn how to do.
After burning the Ophcrack LiveCD ISO file, insert the disc or drive into the computer that you want to recover a Windows 7 password and continue to the next step.
Restart the locked computer and set BIOS boot order so it can boot from the disc or drive. If you've never set BIOS to use CD/DVD or USB drive as first boot order before, I highly recommend following the instructions I linked to at the guide of Spower Windows Password Reset above.
Go ahead and restart the computer.
Wait for the Ophcrack LiveCD menu to appear. You don't need to do anything here.
Wait for Ophcrack LiveCD to load.
When an Ophcrack LiveCD software's screen appears, it will locate all user accounts it found on this Windows 7 machine and begin recovering the passwords one by one. The process is completely automated. Be patient.
After Ophcrack recovers passwords and displays on the screen, write them down on paper.
Remove the disc or drive, and then restart your computer. Since you've recovered the password you're home free. Just log on to Windows 7 with your newly discovered password!

Of course, there're many of other options you can try to get Windows 7 passwords recovery, go on with this article.

Option 2: Recover a password with an administrator account

If you forgot your Windows 7 password and the computer is domain joined, you may try to contact the system administrator to recover the passwords. If the computer is not connected to the domain and the account is just a LOCAL user account, you can use another local administrator account to easily unlock the password. You will find below the steps to change user account password in Windows 7.

Start your locked computer and press F8 key repeatedly to get into boot menu screen.
Choose Safe Mode and press the Enter key.
On the home screen click on Administrator to log into Windows 7 desktop (Most of the time, this admin account has no password set)
Click the Start menu button in the bottom left corner
In the Control Panel, choose User Accounts, and then click Manage User Accounts.
On the Users tab, select the user account name, and then click Reset Password.
Type the new password and password hint, confirm it, and then click OK.

Option 3: Via Microsoft Windows 7 password recovery DVD disk

Windows 7 tries to prevent you from making a big mistake by providing the built-in feature of creating a password recovery disk—a specially created disk that allows you to access your account on a local computer to recover password no matter how many times you have changed the password for the account. If you've made a Microsoft Windows 7 recover password disk before the disaster happened, it is really easy to change password to your account.

Start your computer.
When you attempt to log on Windows with incorrect password in Welcome screen, Windows displays an error message. Click OK to close the message.
Click the Reset password link below the password field, and then insert your Windows 7 password recovery disk.
This will bring up Password Reset wizard, follow the steps until you get into Reset the User Account Password screen.
In the dialog, type a new password and password hint
Click Next and you'll get a notification that your password has been reset.

You're done! You can now use the new password to get access to Windows 7 again. Everything else about the user account will remain unchanged.

If you are already locked out of your Windows 7 computer and have no password recovery disk in hand, you are not able to use this process. Move on to next option.

Option 4: Use a Windows 7 System Repair Disc to restore Windows 7

The System Repair Disc is simply a gateway to Windows' built-in recovery tools. It comes with several system recovery options to help you repair system errors including login password issues. This method only works if you created the system repair disc before lost the password. Here's how it works.

Insert the System Repair disc in the optical drive and restart the Windows 7 PC.
If prompted, press any key to boot from the Windows 7 System Repair Disc. If your computer still boots from the hard drive, you need to set the BIOS to have the disc listed first in the boot order. You can check the link in method 1 to learn how to configure BIOS boot order.
Select your language preferences and click on Next.
When System Recover is finished searching for Windows installations, click Next.
Select Windows 7 you want to restore from the list and the click on Next.
In System Recovery options screen, choose Command Prompt and proceed.
When a command prompt window opens, type the following commands, and then press Enter.

copy c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe c:\

copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe

Close the Command Prompt window, remove the disc and then restart your computer.
When Windows 7 login screen appears. Hit the Shift key 5 times to open Command Prompt.
Type the following command, replacing the username and password with whatever you want:

net user examplename examplepassword

Close the Command Prompt window and restart the computer.

After recovering the password, you should be able to log into your Windows 7 computer using the new password. BTW, if you want to reverse the changes you've made in command prompt, you can execute the command in Command Prompt window:

copy c:\utilman.exe c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe

Option 5: Perform a clean install of Windows

If none of the above options work for recovering password in Windows 7, you will have to perform a clean install of Windows. Of course, you'll miss out on the good pre-installed apps and possible some personal data, but at least this will get you back into Windows. Check a complete step-by-step tutorial on reinstalling Windows 7 from Lifewire.com.

The Bottom Line

Once you've recovered Windows 7 passwords and get back into computer desktop, it's advisable to change your password to something that's much easier to remember and set a password recovery hint. Also, don't forget to create a password reset disk.

Hope this article will be helpful to you.