Windows 10: Forgot local password and can't access Windows

My wife used a local password to log into Win 10, and got a Microsoft account, specifying another password. The next time she booted up, neither her old nor new password was accepted. We don't have a Win 10 CD to fix things, because we downloaded Win 10 online. I've tried downloading a couple of password workaround apps to my own PC, creating a USB drive that can be booted from, putting it into her computer, and configuring her BIOS to boot from it, but Windows always starts same as usual; looks as if it's not reading the USB drive regardless of the BIOS setting.

I've also tried booting up in Safe Mode with Command Prompt, but I'm not given a command prompt; just a larger login screen. Has anyone any other ideas to either change her password or just disable her password requirement altogether? She doesn't need that type of security anyway.

:)

 

forgot local admin password in my pc

Friends,I forgot my password of local administrator user in my PC which is running on windows 10.I know the pin of local admin but I forgot my password.I cant know the password through hint.I didn't have a password reset disk.I
can access my computer through pin.But for some other purposes I need my password.Is there any other way to know the password?

 

Forgot the Windows 10 password, unable to change it.

Original title: Notebook

I forgot the password to my Win 10 notebook. I can access via a PIN, but can't change password without the old password which I forgot.

 

Hi.
On bootup, what account is showing now? The local account or the MS account?
Can you go online on another system/tablet/phone to account.live.com/password/reset and change the password for the MS account? Change the password to what it is supposed to be.
I don't think you would be able to remove the password for an MS account, ever. You could for a local account though.

Without being able to log into the computer at all, can you tell me, are both accounts still showing, or was the local account switched over to the MS account?

If the local account was switched to an MS account, you may have to perform some trickery, enabling the hidden administrator account to create a new local admin user, to get control over the machine again. (see option #4)

FYI: You can get a W10 ISO here:
Media Creation Tool

Run the tool and select to make media for another PC.

 

Thanks for your reply, simrick. I don't know how to tell whether her login screen shows her local account or the MS account; it looks the same as it used to, though, and there appears to be only one account. No other account(s) are listed at the lower left.

On my own computer, three days ago I tried changing her MS password on account.live.com/password/reset, and after responding to numerous questions, some of which I couldn't answer, it said it would contact me at my own email address to tell me whether I had answered enough questions to enable a password change. That was three days ago, and I've received no reply. I repeated the process today, correcting some of the information, and I'm waiting for a response. (I know they have my correct email address because they sent me a security code to verify it.)

 

The MS account at the login screen will be her full name, (first and last), as registered with MS. I just went through this with someone else. They did nothing, and all of a sudden were not able to log into their MS account on the computer. When we finally got to the screen to make the password change on my computer, we used the existing password and it took. This tells me something was wrong on MS's end, because I think it should not accept a password which has already been used.

Have you checked your spam/junk folder?

You could try contacting the MS Answer desk. Failing that, I would use Step #4 in the tutorial to enable the hidden Administrator account. For booting to USB/DVD media, you'd want to use the function key for your particular system, to get to the one-time boot menu; usually F12, F2, Del, Esc... You'll have to Google the system to find the exact method. I just quickly found this on a Gateway system.
Gateway NV52L23u boot from usb/cd-rom - Forums - CNET

Once in the Hidden Admin account, create a new local admin user for her, with a password. Reboot the system into W10, log into that user, copy her files over to it, and then delete the MS account.

 

Go to this thread post #4. See if that helps.

 

Sorry for wasting your time, gentlemen, but I solved the problem by simply trying my wife's Microsoft Account password again, myself, on her login screen. It worked. Which is a good thing, because even trying to boot up using Microsoft's own USB booting app didn't work. I'm suspicious that her bios is nonintuitive and I'm not using it correctly, but that's another story. . . .

Anyway, I think it's annoying that you can happily use a local account until you decide to "join" Microsoft, and without warning you have to use a much more complex password.

 

For the future this is a good idea http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...#1TC=windows-7

 

Glad you got it sorted! Never a waste of time. Please go ahead and mark the thread as solved. Cheers! *Thumbs