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4 Top Windows Password Recovery Free Tools

Windows password recovery tools are often called “password cracking” tools because they are sometimes used to “crack” passwords by hackers. Legally cracking your own Windows password is certainly a legitimate practice!

Windows password recovery tools are used to recover lost user and administrator passwords used to log on to Windows operating systems.

Here are the top 4 free Windows password recovery programs available.A List of the Best Free Windows Password Recovery Tools

1. Offline NT Password & Registry Editor

Offline NT Password

Offline NT Password

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor works basically the same as PC Login Now in that it erases your Windows password instead of recovering it. You can then simply log in to your account without entering a password.

Like Ophcrack, you boot to a burned CD created with the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor ISO file.

If you like this “password deleting” strategy then I highly recommend this program. Offline NT Password & Registry Editor works basically the same way as PC Login Now, but this program is free.

I tried Offline NT Password & Registry Editor on a Windows XP PC and it worked immediately without problem. It should work equally well with Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows 2000, and Windows NT.

2. LCP

LCP

LCP

LCP is yet another free password recovery software tool for Windows.

Like Cain & Abel, LCP is a standard Windows program you download from LCPSoft’s website and install inside of Windows, meaning you’ll need access to a user account no the computer.

LCP can be a little intimidating to those new to password recovery tools so some prior knowledge is very helpful to avoid even bigger problems with your PC.

I haven’t been able to get LCP to work for me. If you’ve successfully used LCP and would like to share your experiences, please let me know.

3. Cain & Abel

Cain & Able

Cain & Able

Cain & Abel is a free, fast and effective Windows password recovery tool.

Unlike Ophcrack and other popular password hacking programs, Cain & Abel requires access to Windows under an administrator account. Due to this fact, Cain & Abel is a valuable resource to recover passwords to accounts other than the one you’re using.

Add that to the fact that Cain & Abel is a bit more complicated to use than other password recovery apps and you have what is, in my book, a pretty advanced tool. Check it out if you think it might be useful to you.

Cain & Abel was able to recover the 10-character password to a Windows XP administrator account in ten seconds. I couldn’t get it to work properly Windows Vista. One user said it works great with Windows 7.

4. Ophcrack

Ophcrack

Ophcrack

The Ophcrack Windows password cracker is by far the best free Windows password recovery tool available. It’s fast and easy enough for a first time password cracker with a basic knowledge of Windows.

With Ophcrack, you don’t need any access to Windows to be able to recover your lost passwords. Simply visit the site, download the free ISO image, burn it to a CD and boot from the CD. The Ophcrack program starts, locates the Windows user accounts, and proceeds to recover (crack) the passwords – all automatically.

In a test on a Windows 7 PC, Ophcrack recovered the 10-character password to my administrator account in 40 seconds. Ophcrack supports Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

5. One other windows password recovery tool

You can search the tools name for detailed info and how-to-use,If the above 4 tools are also difficult for you to use,i just refer to one more tool which can reset Windows passwords including administrator password and user passwords, it supports Windows XP,Windows Vista,Windows 7 and Windows Server 2000/2003/2008.First we need to burn it onto a blank CD as ‘Windows password reset disk’,it just a real Windows password reset disk,after use it,just put it well for later using.Then insert the CD into locked computer to reset passwords to blank for any accounts in the computer.

The LCP for us to read passwords stored in System SAM files,and Ophcrack for USB and floppy drive.

Crack windows password from system SAM files

Forgot windows password?If you have no windows reset disk and do not want to reformat windows,you could also learn to crack windows password from system SAM files.

To start you are going to need a few things:

* – Backtrack installed on your system. So you will have already downloaded the LIVE CD booted it and installed it to your hard drive in a small partition. If you are having troubles with the installation and dual boot go HERE for a tutorial on that.

* – The rainbow table from shmoogroup. Download here: LanMan – Alpha, Numeric, Symbol14 Character Set 10Gb (They take forever to download and then decompress, but its worth it.) You can DL the file to your windows partition and decompress it there. Use 7zip to decompress the files. In fact that is how I use them in this tutorial, also it just keeps you linux partition smaller. NOTE: these tables are already sorted so you do not need to use rsort.

* – At least a gig of RAM.

* – The SAM and SYSTEM files from … someone’s computer (Note it is illegal to crack the passwords in files you don’t own). I reccomend putting them on a thumb drive.

* – Pateience and Time.

Once you have done/got all of the above you are ready to start cracking:

Boot your backtrack partition. Login as root.

Insert the thumb drive (or cd if you used a cd) with the SAM and SYSTEM files that you legally aquired.

You will need to mount the thumb drive. So go into the KDE version of the “start” button. You will find it all the way in the lower left hand corner or the taskbar…its blue. Click it.

In the muen that pops up, select “System” then “info center”.

You will get a window that shows you all of the components on your machine. Select “storage devices icon. Your thumb drive will appear as an unmounted “SDB” “removable storage” drive. The path will look something like this “/mnt/sdb1″.

Select that drive and right click, in the context menu select “Mount Drive”.

Now you can access the files on the thumb drive. Close the window you just opened.

Its time to copy the “sam” and the “system” files to the temp directory:

Click the little screen icon, in the lower left hand corner of the desktop’s taskbar, to open up a BASH command shell (its a window that looks somewhat similar to the Windows “Command Prompt” window).

Type in this command:

cd /mnt/sdb_removable

The shell should now show this as the directory “slax sdb1_removable #”

Now type these commands:

cp SAM /tmp

cp system /tmp

Keep this BASH shell open.

Note: You have just copied the “sam” and the “system” files to your tmp directory.

Now you need to get the BASH shell back into the root partition (or, more technically, running from/in the root partition).

Use/type this command:

cd root

Now you are running your BASH commands from the root directory.

The Windows hashes are in the SAM file, and they are encrypted. You need a bootkey to decrypt the SAM hashes. You can get the bootkey from the “system” file you harvested. Here’s how:

In the same BASH shell, run this command:

bkhive system key

The boot key will now appear in the BASH shell.

Now you can dump the password hashes out of the SAM file with samdump2:

Still in the same BASH shell, type this command:

samdump2 SAM key > /tmp/hashes.txt

This command just created a file called “hashes.txt” in your “tmp” directory.

Now its time to use those rainbowtables that you downloaded and decompressed.

Note: You need to know where you have them on your machine (ie you need to know the file path in linux).

To do this go back to the “info center” and right click on one of the devices that is NOT your linux partition (it will be an NTFS formated drive with alot of disc space used).

After the “right-click”, select “open in file browser” from the context menu.

If you are in the wrong device close the window that pops up and select a different device. Keep doing this until you find the device that has all the rainbowtables that you have in your Windows “C:\” directory, or wherever you have them stored.

Now find where you kept the rainbow tables. Note that in the search bar there will be a file path (much like in windows file explorer … only different).

Keep this window open.

Now, go back to (select) the BASH shell that you already have open and run this command.

rcrack mnt/sda5/rainbowtables/*.rt -f /tmp/hashes.txt

NOTE: Replace the “mnt/sda6/file/rainbowtables/” part, with the file path in the window that you have kept open with all you rainbowtables in it. Also Note: the asterisk in the command is a “wild card” that will allow rainbowcrack to use ALL of the rainbow tables in that directory.

If you have questions about the “rcrack” command, just type “rcrack” into the BASH shell, and it will show you all the ways to use the command.

The shell will start to run crack. Because the tables are so HUGE and numerous it takes a little bit, like 10-20 minutes (remember these tables cover several symbols as well as all the alpha numeric characters)

When it finishes, the bash command will display which paswords were found,then got your lost passwords back.Best of luck.

The easy way to delete a stubborn file

If you know the windows safe mode and the usefulness of safe mode,then you can manage the undeletable file or folder in Windows XP easily.

It’s inevitable that Windows XP will sooner or later prevent you from deleting a certain file or folder. Typically an unsuccessful attempt to delete a file or folder in use causes an error message that says the files cannot be deleted because they are currently in use. So, After we know the windows safe mode, don’t be worried, follow these easy steps and you will be free of the pesky offender in no time.[>>>forgot windows password]

To delete a stubborn file:

1. Turn on your computer and immediately press the F8 key on your keyboard several times until the “Advanced Options Menu” screen appears.

2. Use the up or down arrows on your keyboard to select “Safe Mode,” Press the Enter key.

3. Windows will boot and load only the vital system services. Once loaded you will see the Welcome Screen, click the icon for the account labeled “Administrator” or an account that has administrative privileges, and then type your password (if you have one).

4. A message alerts you that Windows is running in Safe Mode. To proceed, click the Yes button.[>>>bypass windows administrator password]

5. You can use Safe Mode in much the same way that you would use the normal Windows mode, except while in safe mode some functions and programs may not work as they normally would. This is called Windows Diagnostic Mode.

6. Locate the problem file or folder, and then right click on the offender to simply delete it.

7. Restart your computer and log into your normal user account.

The undeletable file or folder is history! Try,just like this.

The provious post:Windows safe mode for us to detect and repair system failure

Windows safe mode for us to detect and repair system failure

Many times we need to enter windows safe mode,but what the safe mode means?Why do we must enter the safe mode?

So,we enter the safe mode usually for these reasons:

1) Delete the stubborn files.
2) “Safe mode” reduction.
3) Killing virus.
4) Remove the group policy locking.
5) Repair system failure.
6) Recover system Settings.
7) Investigate the start of the malicious programs or service.
8) Detect incompatible hardware.
9) Uninstall incorrect driver.

And we need to know safe mode first.

Windows is a very capable operating system. But there are times when things go wrong and the computer crashes. When the computer reboots, it loads a low-resolution desktop and it has the words “safe mode” on all four corners of the screen. Ever wondered what this is and what it is used for?

Safe mode is a diagnostic mode used in Windows, Mac OS, and certain electronic devices. An operating system has reduced functionality during safe mode to allow the user to diagnose a problem with a driver, software, or hard disk. During safe mode, minimal drivers are used in order to isolate a program so that it can be easily be evaluated for common problems such as corrupt disks or poorly configured software.[>>>bypass windows password]

Safe mode loads as few executable modules as possible and runs a minimal amount of devices, usually just enough for the computer to carry out basic functions. Safe mode can be described as a ‘miniature’ operating system. Safe mode typically allows the user to run diagnostic programs and utilities in order to troubleshoot a program. Once the user has corrected the problem, the computer can be rebooted and started in normal mode.

In Windows, during safe mode, the computer does not boot the system configuration files or any of the autoexec.bat files. Most drivers are also not loaded (Drivers are software that the computer uses to communicate with hardware, such as a printer or scanner). Instead of the normal graphics driver, safe mode utilizes only the standard VGA graphics. That is why the screen has only about 16 colors and the resolution is reduced. Safe mode boots with system.cb file instead of the standard system.ini file.[>>>forgot windows password]

Safe mode starts automatically if Windows did not successfully boot on a previous attempt. You can also initiate safe mode yourself by hitting the F5, F8, NUM Lock, or DEL key on your keyboard, depending on what type of
BIOS you have. If you computer boots in safe mode you should figure out what went wrong and try to fix it. Check any newly added hardware or program or game that you have recently installed. After you delete the new software, you can now reboot the computer. If it reboots successfully, there is a problem with the new hardware or software you have just installed.

Safe mode is not as intimidating as it seems, and it is actually designed you fix problems with your computer.After we really know safe mode,then it will play an important role on the maintenance of computer.

The previous post:Thirteen steps to recover forgotten windows xp administrator password with Windows XP CD

The next post:The easy way to delete a stubborn file

Thirteen steps to recover forgotten windows xp administrator password with Windows XP CD

Just forgot windows xp administrator password?If you have got a Windows XP CD,then you probably have nothing to worry about.You can get back into your system using a simple but effective method made possible by a little known access hole in Windows XP.Now follow the steps.

1. Place your Windows XP CD in your cd-rom and start your computer (it’s assumed here that your XP CD is bootable – as it should be – and that you have your bios set to boot from CD)

2. Keep your eye on the screen messages for booting to your cd Typically, it will be “Press any key to boot from cd”

3. Once you get in, the first screen will indicate that Setup is inspecting your system and loading files.

4. When you get to the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER to Setup Windows now

5. The Licensing Agreement comes next – Press F8 to accept it.

6. The next screen is the Setup screen which gives you the option to do a Repair.

It should read something like “If one of the following Windows XP installations is damaged, Setup can try to repair it”.Use the up and down arrow keys to select your XP installation (if you only have one, it should already be selected) and press R to begin the Repair process.

7. Let the Repair run. Setup will now check your disks and then start copying files which can take several minutes.

8. Shortly after the Copying Files stage, you will be required to reboot. (this will happen automatically – you will see a progress bar stating “Your computer will reboot in 15 seconds”

9. During the reboot, do not make the mistake of “pressing any key” to boot from the CD again! Setup will resume automatically with the standard billboard screens and you will notice Installing Windows is highlighted.

10. Keep your eye on the lower left hand side of the screen and when you see the Installing Devices progress bar, press SHIFT + F10. This is the security hole! A command console will now open up giving you the potential for wide access to your system.

11. At the prompt, type NUSRMGR.CPL and press Enter. Voila! You have just gained graphical access to your User Accounts in the Control Panel.

12. Now simply pick the account you need to change and remove or change your password as you prefer. If you want to log on without having to enter your new password, you can type control userpasswords2 at the prompt and choose to log on without being asked for password. After you’ve made your changes close the windows, exit the command box and continue on with the Repair (have your Product key handy).

13. Once the Repair is done, you will be able to log on with your new password (or without a password if you chose not to use one or if you chose not to be asked for a password). Your programs and personalized settings should remain intact.

If we can protect ours password well,it can completely save us these needless trouble.

the provious post:Boot up in safe mode from different operating systems

Boot up in safe mode from different operating systems

Sometimes,we usually need to boot up in safe mode,such as repair system failures,thoroughly get rid of the virus,etc.Because the safe mode starts your system in the condition of without loading any program,its the minimum system environment.The following just list their methods to different operating systems.[>>>bypass windows password]

(A)Windows XP

If Windows XP is the only operating system installed on your computer, booting into Safe Mode with these instructions.

1.If the computer is running, shut down Windows, and then turn off the power.

2.Wait 30 seconds, and then turn the computer on.

3.Start tapping the F8 key. The Windows Advanced Options Menu appears. If you begin tapping the F8 key too soon, some computers display a “keyboard error” message. 4.To resolve this, restart the computer and try again.

5.Ensure that the Safe mode option is selected.

6.Press Enter. The computer then begins to start in Safe mode.

7.When you are finished with all troubleshooting, close all programs and restart the computer as you normally would.

To use the System Configuration Utility method

1.Close all open programs.

2.Click Start, Run and type MSCONFIG in the box and click OK

3.The System Configuration Utility appears, On the BOOT.INI tab, Check the “/SAFEBOOT” option, and then click OK and Restart your computer when prompted.

4.The computer restarts in Safe mode.

5.Perform the troubleshooting steps for which you are using Safe Mode.

6.When you are finished with troubleshooting in Safe mode, open MSCONFIG again, on the BOOT.INI tab, uncheck “/SAFEBOOT” and click OK to restart your computer.[>>>reset windows password--blog]

(B)Windows 2000

1.If the computer is running, shut down Windows, and then turn off the power.

2.Wait 30 seconds, and then turn the computer on.

3.When you see the black-and-white Starting Windows bar at the bottom of the screen, start tapping the F8 key. The Windows 2000 Advanced Options Menu appears.

4.Ensure that the Safe mode option is selected. In most cases, it is the first item in the list and is selected by default.

5.Press Enter. The computer then begins to start in Safe mode.

6.When you are finished with all troubleshooting, close all programs and restart the computer as you normally would.

(C)Windows 98/Me

1.Restart the computer.

2.Just after the POST diagnostics and memory count, start pressing the F8 key.

3.On the Startup Menu, choose Safe Mode.

or you may use the System Configuration Utility Method.

1.While in Normal mode, Close all programs.

2.Click Start, Run and type MSCONFIG in the box and click OK.

3.In the System Configuration Utility, on the General Tab, click the Advanced Button.

4.In the Advanced Troubleshooting Settings dialog box, check Enable Startup Menu. Click OK. Click OK again when the System Configuration Utility reappears.

5.You will be prompted to restart the computer. Click Yes. The computer will restart in Safe mode.

6.When you are finished with troubleshooting in Safe mode, open MSCONFIG again and uncheck “Enable Start-up Menu.” under the Advanced Menu, then click OK and restart your computer.[>>>forgot windows password]

(D)Windows 95

1.Restart the computer.

2.Just after the POST diagnostics and memory count, start pressing the F8 key.

3.On the Startup Menu, choose Safe Mode.

(E)Windows as part of a multiboot system

Use this method ONLY if you have multiple operating systems installed on your computer.

1.If the computer is running, shut down Windows, and then turn off the power.

2.Wait 30 seconds, and then turn the computer on.

3.When the Boot loader menu (list of the available operating systems) appears, use the arrow keys on the keyboard to select the version Windows what you want.

4.Press Enter, and then immediately begin tapping the F8 key. The Windows Advanced Options menu appears.

5.Scroll to and select the Safe mode menu item, and then press Enter.

After boot up in safe mode,repair or clean your system well.

The previous post:Create a windows password reset disk using a floppy disk for a new computer inadvance

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