Help needed. Forgot MS Account password for windows 8

[jeep991]

Hi all, hoping someone can help. My parents have forgotten their ms account password to log in to their windows 8 pc and now they can`t get onto their computer. I tried using Ophcracker (think that`s what its called) but it wasn`t able to recover the password on win8. I`m hoping I won`t have to do a clean install for them so anyone have any ideas how to do this. TIA.

[calumniate]

Linux can always bail you out on these things. Here's one for Windows 8..
https://youtu.be/irXUC6hMfeA
Not as easy as it used to be but should work

Uhh perhaps don't tell anyone? Lol.. it used to be more of an admin secret but I guess it is on YouTube

[Skaloper]

Originally Posted by jeep991

Hi all, hoping someone can help. My parents have forgotten their ms account password to log in to their windows 8 pc and now they can`t get onto their computer. I tried using Ophcracker (think that`s what its called) but it wasn`t able to recover the password on win8. I`m hoping I won`t have to do a clean install for them so anyone have any ideas how to do this. TIA.

My experience with windows 8 is that the ms account default setting is you log in with is linked to an email address which you might be able to recover from this link. If the basic recovery options don't work you might have to contact customer support.

If instead you created a local account it might be a bit more difficult but probably still can be done.

[BloodFetish]

The trick to getting at local account passwords is to boot the computer into some other than it's own operating system. In the video above it was a Linux live CD, but my favourite tool at the moment is the Falcon4 bootable CD/USB drive.

It's a veritable swiss army knife of tools for sick computers. On the desktop is a shortcut to run NTPWEdit which you can use to reset local account passwords.

[Rathji]

It it their microsoft account? If so, reset it at https://account.live.com/resetpassword.aspx

If not, use http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html (or the UBCD link that Bloodfetish posted)