Hacking Windows vista Password

If you ever run into the problem where ophcrack, backtrack or similar recovery disks will not work with the architecture and you cant do anything with out the administrator users password then you need to remember this article.

First you need to have an Ubuntu livecd (or bootable flash drive). Got that? good, if not, its free (Ubuntu Download), they will even ship it to you for free (Request Free Copy).

Once you have the livecd, put in the Ubuntu disk and boot that up. Then find the C drive and locate the windows/system32 directory. (Note: if the windows partition is not automatically mounted, you must do it yourself.)

Then remove sethc.exe (but keep it elsewhere because after the crack you have to put it back; a flash drive is useful).

Next, make another copy of cmd.exe in the same directory and name it sethc.exe which is the name of the file you previously moved.

Once done, shut down Ubuntu and fire up Windows. When you get to the login screen hit the shift key 5 times and a command prompt should appear. This command prompt has system rights, as you have not yet logged in. Now type in the following: 

Code

net user nameofadminuserhere nameofnewpasswordhere



Then hit enter. it should give a confirmation of success of some sort. Then pop Ubuntu back in and restore sethc.exe and everything should be back to normal. Then fire up Windows and login with the password you made and the user administrator of the account you changed. 

Note that you also can create a new user account and add that account to the administrators group:

Code

net user desiredusername desiredpassword /add
net localgroup administrators desiredusername /add