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#11
Sorry but "Admin account" might be a description. Is your answer to 1 that you are signed in to the built-in account with the username Administrator or do you just mean that you are signed in to an account that has admin status [an account that you have made at some stage]?
The account to select in the list is the one that you want to reset the password to. If that is the one you are signed in to then you'll get that To change your password press Alt+Ctrl+Delete message instead [and the existing password is needed in order to do any change].
You need to be signed in to a different admin user account in order to reset the existing one's password. By the way, you will lose all your saved internet sign-in credentials by resetting it.
- You could create a new password-protected, admin-level local user account {steps given in a separate post below} then sign in to it so you could then use netplwiz to reset the original one.
Denis
To create an additional password-protected local Admin account if you are currently logged into an Admin account using this procedure -
[Note that at no stage of this procedure are you required to enter your current admin account password as long as you are signed in to it already]
- Start button,
- Settings,
- Accounts,
- Family & other users,
- [Other users section],
- Add someone else to this PC,
- I don't have this person's sign-in information,
- Add a user without a Microsoft account,
- Write down the username, password & security QnA bits that you are about to use [somewhere readily accessible yet secure from loss],
- Enter a username, password & security QnA bits,
- Back in the list of other accounts you can now see in Family & other users, [Other users section],
- Click on the new account,
- Click on Change account type,
- Select the Administrator account type,
- OK.
Denis
No. You will not lose your files from the old account.
You'll just be creating a new administrator account to sign in to and change/reset the password of your old account using Option 3 below.
Change Account Password in Windows 10
Yes. You will, in essence, just be using the new account as a tool to do a job.So I'm just creating another local admin account basically correct?
It will be worth keeping it afterwards so you are ready in case of any future need. You might name it AdminBackup or similar, as I do for my standby admin account.
When you have finished changing the password, you will go back to using your original account.Do user files from the old admin account get lost?
No files are lost.
But
- you will lose all your internet auto-signins and have to redo them.
- And you'll lose access to any EFS encrypted files.
Denis
If it is a local account, you can simply change it, without knowing the previous password.
Just boot Windows 10 USB/DVD to command prompt.
Use the command (depending on, what letter has your system partition assigned):
Boot Windows, start utilman, it will open CMD and change the password:Code:copy /y c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe
For example: Windows 10 - How to Reset Your Forgotten Windows 10 Password - YouTubeCode:net user username password
ALWAYS take a written note of your password and put it in a notebook or something. Keep it in a safe or something like that.
Thanks Everyone and thanks @TairikuOkami for the alternative method. I think have all the tools I need and will attempt to fix the issue when I'm next on the notebook.