Today I had a problem remembering the Administrator password on a VM I had created a long time ago. Although I had created another Admin level account for myself, the VM was not on the domain so I could not even use my own account. Luckily some came to my rescue with his magic Linux boot file which can remove the password.
Step 1
Download the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor from their website. I used version v080526 as v080802 did not seem to be working correctly. Unzip the ISO file 080526.iso to your local drive.
Open up the instructions page on their site.
Step 2
Start your VM and mount the ISO file by right clicking on the icon on the bottom left of the screen and selecting “Capture" ISO Image”.
Now shut down and restart the VM.
Step 3
At this point you can follow the instructions page on the site or just do the following for a quick overview.
- Press <Enter> to select the first disk partition
- Press <Enter> to select the default configuration directory
- Press <Enter> to select option 1; “Password Reset”.
- Press <Enter> to select “Edit user data and password”
- Press <Enter> to select the “Administrator” username or enter which ever you wish
- Enter “1” for option “Clear (blank) user password” and press Enter. There are other options available if needed.
- Enter “!” to quit
- enter “q” to quit
- enter “y” to write the changes to the disk
- Enter “n” to try again option.
Now unmount the ISO by right clicking the icon and selecting “Release 080526.iso” and restart the VM. You should now be able to login without having a password.
