What to Do If You Forget Your Windows XP Login Password

Reset the Password

One safety and security measure that Microsoft Windows XP takes when you assign a password to a user account is offering to create a password reset disk for you. If you have a password reset disk, you can boot the computer from it and have your password reset so that your account is accessible again.

In certain cases, you may want to keep the existing password on the user account, but you still need to know what it is. In this situation, there is a free open-source program called Ophcrack that is distributed on a bootable CD. This program uses brute-force techniques to figure out what the password is. Due to the nature of the program, it does not work 100% of the time. This is the only free software available to reveal and not erase your password.

If you need access to a locked account where the password has been forgotten, another option is to have the password erased completely. To perform this action, obtain a copy of the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. This is a bootable program that modifies user accounts on the system, including erasing passwords. This is the only free software available to perform this action.

If none of the above options are available, the only remaining choice is to completely reinstall Windows. While it is possible to perform a repair with Windows XP, the end result is still the same in that a new user account is created with no password to allow you to access the system again.