Forgotten Password Windows 10: how to recover it

When You sit next to the Windows computer, you type what you think is the right password and bang, you realize you have the wrong Windows password. What to do? Fortunately, the Windows 10 password recovery process is very similar to Windows 8 and 8.1, although with some minor changes.

Here’s how you can recover both your Microsoft account login and credentials for all other Windows 10 users who have a  local account on your PC.

Recover Windows 10 user account password

The first thing that I advise you to do is create a new admin account in order to change the password of local users who do not remember the login credentials. This way you will not lose any files saved on the local account.

Procedure

The first thing you need to do is download the Windows 10 ISO and create a bootable CD / DVD or USB. You can do this by reading the guide that you find linked below:

Once the bootable drive has been created, you must insert the CD / DVD or USB stick, reboot and start the Windows installation process. Remember to change the boot order in the BIOS giving priority to the CD / DVD or USB. If you do not know how, read here:

Once the installation starts, press the Shift + F10 keys (or Shift + F10) and the command prompt will open. If you can not start it, when the Advanced Options item appears during the installation phase, click on it and then go to Troubleshooting> Advanced Options> Command Prompt.

Now that you have opened the prompt you have to move to the drive where you installed Windows 10 (in the example it is D 🙂 and type the command:

move \windows\system32\utilman.exe \windows\system32\utilman.exe.bak

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

This part is finished, now you have to type:

wpeutil reboot

and press enter. Everything will be restarted. Remove the bootable media or restart the Windows installation: run a normal boot up to the  Windows 10 login screen.

At the bottom right click on the Accessibility icon (as shown below) and the command prompt will appear.

Now we can create a new local user with administrator privileges. To do this we use the commands:

net user username /add

net localgroup administrators username /add

Naturally, replace the username with the name you want to assign to the user. If all is successful, you can restart Windows 10  and from the login screen you can select the new administrator account you just created.

You will be able to enter without entering the password and the first thing you need to do is right click on Start and select the Computer Management item:

Now go to Local Users and Groups and then Users and right click on the name of the account whose password you want to reset and click on Set Password.

Set a new password and click  OK.

WARNING: this procedure allows you to change the passwords of local Windows 10 user accounts. If this is a Microsoft account you will receive an error and you will have to use the following procedure.

At this point, you can also recover the saved files if you are interested in moving them. You can do this by accessing the C: Users folder.

Recover Microsoft Windows 10 account passwords

If the account is not a local user account but a Microsoft account then the procedure is very different. You must reset the password by going to the official Microsoft website. You will be faced with three choices but the one that interests you is “I forgot my password“: follow the instructions that will be shown and you can recover the account.