How To Reset Windows Vista Account Password

Few months ago, I wrote a trick posted by a China man about how easily to crack the Windows Vista Administrator account password.

But, it’s not working as it said when I tried it after writing the post.

Today, I found another trick and tested it successfully on my own Windows Vista Ultimate machine - The Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK!

Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a tiny Linux distribution that used to repair or recover both Linux and Windows operating system, including reset or crack Windows Vista administrator account password.
^{Trinity Rescue Kit is a tiny Linux distribution that used to repair or recover both Linux and Windows operating system, including the ability to reset a forgotten Windows Vista Administrator account password}

In fact, there is a proven video demo of using Trinity Rescue Kit to reset a forgotten Windows Vista administrator account password. Beside Windows Vista editions, the TRK is said works well to reset account password in Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 too.

Cautions! It’s illegal (with most countries cyber laws, I think) to crack or reset another Windows logon account password that is not yours. The Trinity Rescue Kit is only a really good toolkit for those who want to reset a forgotten Administrator account password which is under his/her administration or ownership!

How to crack or reset a forgotten Windows Administrator account password with Trinity Rescue Kit in 3 minutes?

Download the latest Trinity Rescue Kit 3.2 Build 279 from the TRK official home page.

Make sure you’re downloading TRK ISO image file and validate its MD5 checksum with the published one (to confirm the ISO image is genuine and safe!)

Burn the TRK ISO image to a blank CD, which is less than 105MB in size.

Boot up Windows Vista machine with the Trinity Rescue Kit CD-ROM and wait for the tiny Linux loading completely to system memory.

Type winpass -u Administrator at the command prompt. To reset a Windows Vista Administrator account called Admin, just replace Administrator as Admin will do.

The winpass command will then displaying message that resemble these:

Searching and mounting all file system on local machine
Windows NT/2K/XP installation(s) found in:
1: /hda1/Windows
Make your choice or ‘q’ to quit [1]:

In this case, type 1 and press ENTER or just hit ENTER key to accept the default value, i.e. [1].

Next, it’s time to reset password of the specified Windows Vista account. The Trinity Rescue Kit suggests resetting it to a blank password that might work better than setting a new password! So, just type * (asterisk key) and hit the ENTER key to reset a blank or empty password for the specified Windows account.

Then, type Y and press ENTER key at the “Do you really wish to change it?” message prompt.

Now, type init 0 to shutdown the Trinity Rescue Kit Linux system, take out the CD-ROM and boot into Windows Vista Ultimate again.

This time, your Windows Vista should have automatically logged on with Administrator account without asking for a forgotten password!

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Topic - Howto, Windows Vista Search - Account, Administrator, Crack, Password, Security, Trinity Rescue Kit, TRK

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42 Comments so far

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Raphaël October 4th, 2007 4:22 am

Hi,

I have tried using this technic since after installing my little sister her new laptop I forgot which password I entered.

Only result is that the picture that is shown at the login screen has been reset to the standard one but I can’t login with the password I gave in.

I editted user Littlesis by typing winpass -u Littlesis

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!
Raphaël October 4th, 2007 4:30 am

Well.. I did it again and put in an asterisks (*) instead of a password..

Now I’m back in to windows again!

Thank you very very much!
Raphaël October 4th, 2007 4:34 am

Hmmm.. well.. that was to soon to be happy..

I can’t change the password inside Windows now.. I tried changing it but Vista says the password can’t be changed and that I typed the current password wrong (while there’s no place to fill in a currect password since there isn’t one)..
Raphaël October 4th, 2007 4:37 am

Well it seems the password has been changed even though I got those errors..
But it seems slower than before..
Secure The Ultimate Vista Administrator Account - Walker News November 11th, 2007 9:21 pm

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someone December 29th, 2007 4:45 am

Okay, for some odd reason, whenever i try the ”winpass -u” part, it saids that i don’t even have a valid version of Vista installed even though i do…….
Kavindu January 4th, 2008 10:55 am

Please Give me Vista Ultimate Genuine key….Please Help me…My Mail Address kavindu1st@gmail.com
Estevan Gonzalez February 20th, 2008 5:46 am

Great Programs!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!
This program does work and it does not have to be Vista Ultimate it also work for the othe versions too.
xDESTROYAx February 27th, 2008 4:06 pm

with windows vista. once downloaded do u just use, the Burn to Disc button. (recordable disc) or is there a program u have to use to burn the disc some seperate way. im sick of using my guest account atm, where i can install nothing!! err!
Dan Black February 28th, 2008 7:31 am

I download the trinity resource kit 3.2 build 279 iso and burned to CD. When I turn on my HP laptop (vista ultimate) I can’t get the trinity program to load even when I disable the HD boot. ANy ideas?????
Walker February 29th, 2008 3:28 am

Hi Dan Black, just to confirm you’ve burnt yourself bootable / valid Trinity CD. Do you have problem to boot it up from other PC / Laptop? (If this is the case, most likely the CD is not bootable)

In other way, do you able to boot up any other bootable CD (be it a bootable CD to install Linux, XP, 2000, 95, 98, Ubuntu, etc) on your laptop? (For this case, your Laptop BIOS setting caused it failed to boot)

I coudn’t think of other reasons for why you couldn’t get it boot up.
Katie March 4th, 2008 3:27 am

hey i have forgotten my admin password and im really stuck on what to do. i cant download anything and my laptop didnt come with a backup disk. i tryed making one but it wouldnt work unless i was the administrator. I really dont know what to do, somebody please help. I have Windows Vista Home Basic.

My e-mail address: xkatiex08@hotmail.co.uk

If anyone knows anything that i could do then please e-mail me.

Thanks
Walker March 4th, 2008 4:40 am

Trinity is able to help you (not the Trinity in Matrix).

Get your friend to burn a copy of TRK and boot it up to reset the admin password.
Krellep March 4th, 2008 10:37 am

Hi, I’ve encountered a problem… The user on my PC is called “Krell Admin ”

What do I do with the spaces? Just ignoring them haven’t seem to be working, neither have _ between em

Thanks for this brilliant guide that might save my PC :D
Katie March 4th, 2008 7:12 pm

What is this TRK?
And what if i cant get a copy of it from my friends? is there anywhere else?

Thanks
Zkdog March 4th, 2008 10:15 pm

I am trying to reset it at work, however the administrator account is disabled and it wont let me reset when I get to the new password.

Any ideas?
Walker March 5th, 2008 9:13 am

@Krellep, I’m not sure this will work but I guess it will - just double-quote the user id, i.e. “Krell Admin ”

@Katie, the TRK download link written in the post.

@Zkdog, suppose there is a Windows Registry key to enable/disable the administrator account, TRK built-in command is able to reset the Registry too.
myk_atok March 19th, 2008 11:01 am

@walker Re:@Zkdog, suppose there is a Windows Registry key to enable/disable the administrator account, TRK built-in command is able to reset the Registry too.

how do you do that with TRK?
Walker March 20th, 2008 10:02 am

Please refer to the TRK manual
em66 March 24th, 2008 3:21 pm

Thanks sooooo much!!!! This totally worked and I can finally seeeeee my vista after like 15 days of trial and errors and after burning a LOT of ISO CD”s which never worked!!!

u’re great!!! Really appreciate it!! Thanks again :D
Carlos M.V. March 31st, 2008 4:04 am

Thanks I’m gonna try this.
Sakonis April 4th, 2008 10:18 pm

That’s work! Thank you :D I tried it with Windows Vista :) but i can’t resset password on XP with it. But never mind :D
Dimitri April 5th, 2008 5:45 am

YOU ARE ABSOLUTETLY BRILLIANT!!!!!!! That’s all I have to say. It worked beautifully on the first try. I had spent at least a good 7 hours today downloading, burning isos from other similar solutions but nothing worked. I was about to give up and call it quits when I stumbled upon your program at the last moment. You have made me and the person that I was trying to help get back into Vista very happy. I’ll try to get them to donate something or at least send you a bottle of ouzo!!!! Cheers!!!!
Walker April 5th, 2008 2:30 pm

HI Dimitri, glad to know that you find this post useful.

But, I must have to say this useful Trinity Rescue Kit is NOT my program! I merely write a note about the TRK.
Wolfblade April 23rd, 2008 3:57 am

Hi!
I´m having some problems with burning the dvd…
I´m using MagicIso.
Can someone give me the steps to burn the image iso (isolinux.bin) to a dvd?
I really appreaciate it.

Regarts,
WolfBlade—
Wolfblade April 23rd, 2008 4:38 am

Or is to burn the trinity-rescue-kit.3.2-build-279.iso?
I´m a complete newbie in this of burning things and of TRK.
Please try to answer soon.

Regarts,
Wolfblade
em66 April 24th, 2008 1:03 am

open Magic ISo
click on tools–> Burn CD/DVD with ISO
a box will open up and you’ll see that you have to load your file… so you browse and find the Image file (usually has a cd icon)
and click on - Burn

You have to burn the trinity rescue kit onto a cd first and then boot from it.

Done! :)
SJ May 13th, 2008 6:01 am

Hi,

My Dell Latitude does not have a CD/DVD drive so how can I get the TRK to work on the laptop?

Will using an external CD/DVD drive, which connects via USB work?

I look forward to hearing from you…

Thanks!
Walker May 13th, 2008 10:52 am

Hi SJ, if the Latitude BIOS supports booting from USB CD/DVD, then you could do that by changing the first boot drive option to USB CD/DVD.

(I’m using Dell Latitude D410, but just too lazy to reboot it now, cause I’ve “tonnes” of stuffs working on now :-(
SJ May 13th, 2008 10:26 pm

Thanks Walker, i’ll give that a try…
Walker May 14th, 2008 12:18 am

Hi SJ, I’ve just recalled that the TRK documentation mention the guide about booting from USB device…have a look.
zoom May 20th, 2008 9:52 am

hi i burned the ISO from the website but when i put in my computer and then reboot nothing happens do i have to log back in to an account and do the rest from there?
Walker May 20th, 2008 9:48 pm

Hi zoom, “nothing happen” means you don’t get the TRK Linux prompt and the PC directly boot into Windows again?

If that’s your case, then I suggest you to change BIOS boot option so that the 1st boot up device is confirmed set to CD/DVD-ROM (I suppose you’ve burnt the ISO image to a CD?).
Freesurfer May 22nd, 2008 3:40 pm

Thank you very much, i just came back from my friends house, and she is a happy camper, thank u Walker and Thank you to who ever wrote this very useful and dangerous program
Salud
chinsey July 1st, 2008 1:23 am

So I get to the option of selecting [1] and I have two options there. either option only takes me to a whole bunch of jargon with this question…

Simple registry editor. ? for help.

Now what? TRK doesn’t say much on this.
Ben July 15th, 2008 10:14 pm

I got the same error as chinsey :( But I downloaded the beta version 3.3 and you told us to download 3.2 so I’m doing that right now. Thanks for the tutorial though! I’m gonna try it in 5 minutes, when the download is done =P
chinsey July 17th, 2008 5:01 am

Ha! After fiddling around with both options I found a prompt for four items… After resetting the ones that made sense it worked. Found that I had to do a hard reboot though as the program seemed to freeze after i did the initiate command. BUT guess what, this TRK works on Vista Business! HOOT HOOT!