How to reset PC password on Windows if you incautiously forget your Windows password? In this post, you can learn some ideas to reset your Windows password without signing in.
Windows requires users to type passwords to sign into the system, so if you happen to forget Windows password carelessly, you will be not allowed to use your PC. To solve this problem, Microsoft offers some ways to help users to change their forgotten password. No matter you’re using a Microsoft online account or a local account on your PC, there are always solutions to reset PC password.
Therefore, in this post, we’ll separately show you how to reset PC password for your Microsoft account and local account. And if the official ways are all failed, you’ll learn how to use a handy password reset tool to simply reset your password.
Users who are using a Microsoft account and those who are using a local account to sign into a PC both have 2 methods to reset passwords, you can skip to the specific ways according to your case.
Resetting a Microsoft Account password is a simple process. Here are 2 ways to reset your Microsoft account password.
◤ Method 1. Directly use Microsoft Account Recovery on Windows
Step 1. Select “Forgot password?”, or you can go directly to Reset password and enter the user name again for the account you’re trying to reset, then select “Next”.
Step 2. Microsoft must authenticate your identity before you may reset your password for your protection. The method for verifying your identity is dependent on whether you previously added security information to your account and if you can still access it.
When you got and may pick a verification option, select the option to send the verification code to, and select "Next".
Step 3. Retype the first part of the email address or the last four digits of the phone number hinted at in the previous window. Select Get code.
Step 4. Enter the code you received and select “Next”.
After your finish all the new settings, you’ll be able to sign into Windows with your new password.
◤ Method 2. Use Microsoft Account Recovery online
If you have any problems resetting your password on Windows, you may try resetting it online. Click the Sign in button on the Microsoft Account website in a browser on a different Desktop or mobile device.
Step 1. At the next screen, type your email address and click “Next”.
Step 2. At the screen to enter your password, click the link for Forgot password.
Step 3. At the next screen, enter an alternative email address through which you can reset your password. If you don’t have one, create a new address using Hotmail.com or Outlook.com. Type the CAPTCHA characters and click “Next”.
Step 4. Enter the code sent to your alternative email address and click Verify.
Step 5. Follow the web to set all information, and click “Next” to continue.
Step 6. If you haven’t provided enough details, you’ll receive a notice asking you to add more information. Otherwise, you should receive a notice indicating that an email will be sent to your alternative address to recover your account. Click OK.
Step 7. The email will include a link for resetting your password. Click it, enter the email address for the account with the forgotten password, and click “Next”.
Step 8. Type and then retype a new password. Click Next. You’ll receive a notice that your password has been changed. Now you can use the new password to sign into the PC.
Using a local account with Windows 10 or Windows 11 has become increasingly complicated, so it’s also a little difficult to reset local account passwords on Windows PC.
If you select the local account, you must have already configured a few security questions and answers during the OS installation process. Hence, if you want to reset your Windows password, simply answer the three questions correctly and then reset your password.
◤ For Windows 11 and Windows 10 Version 1803 (and beyond) users
If you added security questions when you set up your local account for Windows 10, then you can answer security questions to sign back in. After you've entered an incorrect password:
Step 1. Select the Reset password link on the sign-in screen. If you use a PIN instead, see PIN sign-in issues.
Step 2. Answer your security questions. Enter a new password.
Then you can sign in as usual with the new password.
◤ For Windows 10 before version 1803 users
Because there are no security questions in versions of Windows 10 prior to 1803, local account passwords cannot be changed. You may reset your device to pick a new password, but doing so will remove all of your data, applications, and settings.
To reset your device, you can follow the steps.
Step 1. Press the Shift key while you select the Power button > Restart in the lower-right corner of the screen.
Step 2. On the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot > Reset this PC.
Step 3. Select Remove everything.
Apart from the security questions, a password reset disk is another technique to reset a lost password for a local account. Some users may find that Windows has a tool called “Forgotten Password Wizard” that can create a USB used for resetting local PC password.
However, if you get further, you’ll find that the USB created by this tool could only be used on the current PC. You can’t use this USB to reset PC password for another PC.
So, if you can create a PC password reset USB that can be used on other PCs, you can easily reset PC password when you forget your Windows password. Is there any tool that can realize this need? Of course, you can turn to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to create PC password reset USB.
It’s a disk and drive manager for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP/Vista supporting all versions of these systems. Users only need to use this tool on a working PC to make a PC password reset USB, and plug it into the target PC, then follow the simple steps of this program to remove the password or reset the password.
Sounds quite easy, right? Now, prepare a USB and find a working Windows PC to perform this way.
Step 1. In the toolbar above the disk information, choose "Tools" and the “Reset Windows Password” function.
Step 2. Click “Next” to continue.
Step 3. Choose your USB in the USB Boot Device box, then click “Proceed”.
Now, wait for the process to create a password reset tool. When it’s finished, you can remove this USB and plug it into the PC you want to reset the password.
Step 4. After you plug it into the target PC, and reboot it, this USB will become the boot drive automatically, and you’ll enter this tool to reset PC password.
Now, if your computer has 2 systems, you’ll choose the system that you forget the password of. And click “Next”. If your PC has only one system, this step will be skipped.
Step 5. You’ll see all accounts on the current PC, select the account you want to reset the password, and choose the operation you want to perform: Remove password or Reset password. Click “Next”.
Step 6. If you want to remove the password, you’ll see a confirmation window. Click “OK” to confirm.
If you choose to reset PC password, you’ll see a window asking you to type your new password and confirm the password by typing the new password again. Click “OK” after you reset your new password.
Step 7. Now, click “reboot your PC” and confirm your operation.
In this post, we showed how to reset PC password on Windows PC for Microsoft account users and for local account users. You can choose a suitable method according to your needs.
AOMEI Partition Assistant offers local account users a better service if they can’t use security questions to reset their Windows password. And if your PC has something wrong, this tool can make a bootable PC repair USB to fix the problems without entering Windows.
In addition, you can also use this software to clone disk, move apps, migrate OS, convert to MBR/GPT without data loss, and so on. For Windows Server users, you can choose the Server Edition to efficiently manage your Server computers.