5-minute password reset (Windows)

Audio engineers have a saying: “it’s all about finding that one button”. And the way that this wisdom translates into virtually anything that requires skills is that “it can take very little time, if you know the magic trick”. You wouldn’t believe how often “IT Consultants” tell people they need to have Windows reinstalled, and sometimes even have the hard drives wiped clean prior to the reinstall, to address the lost password issue. The truth is that there are very few situations that really require “Windows reload” and the more expert the IT Consultant is, the more likely it is that he will avoid doing that. The opposite is certainly true, as well, for performing an OS reinstall requires very little knowledge these days. So due to the rising demand, here is a quick 5-minute do-it-yourself workaround. On a PC running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or higher, you turn your computer on and in a couple of seconds you start hitting the F8 key repeatedly until you see the black-and-white startup options menu. Select “Safe Mode” and hit “enter” twice. Wait until the system boots up and you should have “Administrator” among other users on the Windows Welcome screen. 9 out of 10, this account will not be password protected. So you click on it, it lets you in, you give it a few more seconds and go to the control panel to get to “user accounts”. Click in, pick your name and select “change password”. Was that easy?