Change your forgotten Windows password via the command prompt

Reader Mark U. wrote us an e-mail in regards to our article on password recover with Windows XP:

Hey,

I read over the answer for “Password recovery with Windows XP“

I noticed you just link to external pages, unlike other answers where you actually give examples, etc. I’m not trying to dis you…so don’t take it that way.

Anyway, I have additional tip for this page. I have Win XP Pro and I’m in a workgroup. If you forget your password, and you can log into the Admin account, do so. Then…

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type “cmd”
4. Press the Run button

Type in:
net user <the username with lost password> <new password>
Example: net user Zen foobarpasswd

To change a password without showing the password text on the screen, type in:
net user <username> *
Example: net user Zen *
The asterisk will create a password prompt and a second confirm entry prompt.

Thanks, Mark! Don’t worry, we won’t take your dis personally since you didn’t bring anyone’s mother into it. The reason that we mostly linked to external articles in that e-mail was because Microsoft already had a lot of well-written information on the subject, so we saw it best to just serve as the messenger.

To clarify what Mark already said, you must be logged into Windows with administrator access in order to pull off this trick. This is a handy peice of know-how to have if you or another user as forgotten their password and you’ve got admin access to the system.

See also: Mark’s tip, published at Lifehacker.

[tags]password recovery,windows xp[/tags]