Lost password on old Win7

Sometimes you need to activate an old Windows 7 machine that has been sitting idle for years. It contains data your customer desperately needs. The domain was taken down 5-10 years ago and no-one knows the Admin password.
Does this sound familiar? - I had to do it the other week and this is what I did to reset the admin password. You can use it to reset any users password.

Use Your Windows 7 Password Reset Disk

This is the normal way but after so many years they are just gone.

Hack the machine

Make the machine ready for a new password

1. Insert either your Windows 7 installation disc, a System Repair disc or a flash drive with the disc image - then restart your computer.
2. After your computer boots from the flash drive, select Next on the screen with your language and keyboard choices.
3. Select Repair your computer.
4. Once your installation is found, take note of the drive letter in the Location column.Usually it's D: but yours may be different.
5. Select Windows 7 from the Operating System list and then choose Next.
6. From System Recovery Options, select Command Prompt.
7. Then copy the utilman.exe to D: and then overwright it

copy d:\windows\system32\utilman.exe d:\

copy d:\windows\system32\cmd.exe d:\windows\system32\utilman.exe

Enter a user and a password

1. Remove your disk or flash drive and restart and at boot up select the little icon on the bottom-left of the screen that looks like a pie with a square around it.
2. With Command Prompt open, execute the net user command.
   net user <username> <newpassword> Below is a very week password.

net user admin Pa$$w0rd

Never use Pa$$w0rd as a password - it's completely reckless

Reboot to check and end procedures

Reboot with the new info and if all is good it might be a good time to make a new Password Reset Disk.

You might like to reverse the hack at this time, it's wise.

Redo steps 1-7 and copy utilman.exe

copy d:\utilman.exe d:\windows\system32\utilman.exe