Question Forgot password for windows 10

[strep3241]

I feel stupid for this but I goofed and locked myself out of windows 10. I completely forgot the pass for windows 10, normally I write passwords down but must of forgot to write this one down. I been using the netplwiz command to avoid entering the pass everytime, for some reason I turned it off not realizing I didn't know what the pass was. Now I can't get back into windows. It has a hint but still can't figure it out. Tried doing a reset password but it asks for removable media, I never made a reset disk for this. I am pretty sure this is a local admin account and not a microsoft account.

Short of reinstalling windows, is there a way to get past this? I booted to windows 10 usb drive and I tried doing a startup repair, not sure if that would help or not but it says it can't do a repair and gives me a name of a log file. Would a system restore help any? I talked to a local computer store and he said something about enabling a hidden admin account through cmd prompt but couldn't recall the exact command to enter.

 

[crashtech]

If you have an online account, the best you can do is to access your files with the admin account, but you can't alter the password afaik. If it's a local account, you can alter the password. The tool that is typically used to enable the admin acct and/or blank user passwords is a utility called chntpw or nt_password run from a live Linux distro. It's been a long time since I used it but they are out there on the Internet.

 

[strep3241]

I took it to a local computer store and he removed the password. He booted into his ssd drive with windows that had a program on there that was able to remove it.

 

[EXCellR8]

There are specialized software suites and recovery environments that can be used to reset passwords on local accounts, though I try to avoid using them.