Month: April 2016

I’m a Mac user, but I have Windows running (via Bootcamp) for those rare times when I need to use Windows. Those times are very rare. So rare that yesterday when I needed to boot into Windows, I had a big problem: I forgot my Windows password.

I’m usually good a remembering my passwords, because I have a mental system for generating secure passwords that are easy for me to remember. But in this case, my system failed. I just couldn’t remember my password, so I couldn’t get into my Windows partition.

So I asked my friend the Internet for some help. My friend the Internet knows just about everything, and it solved my problem for me. After a few misses, I found success with the utility program called the “Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor.”  http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

I downloaded the ISO (CD image) file, burned it to a CD, then booted my computer from the CD. The program found my Windows partition, and cleared the password. I was then able to log into Windows. Success!

The program didn’t show me my password, though. It erased it and let me log in without a password. So although I was able to get into Windows, I don’t know what the old password was. That’s a little annoying. I would have liked to have known what the password was, so that I could reverse-engineer my thinking when I made the password. If I knew what I was thinking, I could possible avoid making that mistake again. Oh well…