Reset the Administrator password (Windows)

Boot your VPS into the Recovery Enviroment and then execute the following commands;

  1. mount /dev/vda2 /mnt
  2. cd /mnt/Windows/System32/
  3. cp sethc.exe sethc.exe.bak
  4. cp cmd.exe sethc.exe
  5. poweroff

Now remove the ISO from your VPS. Then start your VPS from the control panel.

Once your machine has fully booted into Windows, after you see the logon screen, press the SHIFT key five times. Do not hit Ctrl-Alt-Del here, just hit [shift] 5 times in a row. If you’ve done it right, you should see a Windows command prompt where you can enter the following command to reset the Windows password.

net user Admin MyNew!Passw0rd

You should now be able to log on with the new password you just created.

Optionally, you can disable this password reset trick now by deleting C:\Windows\System32\sethc.exe and renaming C:\Windows\System32\sethc.exe.bak to C:\Windows\System32\sethc.exe

 




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