1. Download and burn the ISO file on to a CD or USB flash drive

   2. Boot from the CD or USB flash drive

   3. Hit Enter at the boot: prompt

   4. Select the boot partition (usually 1)

   5. Enter the PATH to the registry hive files (hit Enter for the default WINDOWS\System32\config)

   6. Hit Enter (1) for password reset

   7. Hit Enter (1) to edit user data and passwords

   8. Hit Enter to change password for the Administrator account

   9. Enter * to blank the password

  10. Enter y to blank the password

  11. Enter ! to quit the password editor

  12. Enter q to exit the change NT password utility

  13. Enter y to save the changes to the Windows SAM database

  14. Enter n to exit the program

  15. Remove the CD or USB flash drive and reboot the computer

Having the ability to reset forgotten passwords and gain administrator access to your computer and can be a great time saver, but should only be a attempted by an IT professional. Using sophisticated system manipulation tools, you can easily make things worse rather than better.