Posts Tagged ‘domain controller password’

How to Break Domain Controller Password without Logging In

October 4th, 2012 by Admin

Forgot domain administrator password and couldn’t log on your domain controller? This is the most common password problems that many network administrators and system administrators face when dealing with domain controller. Here we’ll show you an easy way to break domain controller password quickly and easily.

Reset Windows Password is the powerful utility which enables you to break domain controller password on Windows Server 2008/2003/2000. This utility works offline, that means you need to shut down your computer and boot off your computer using a CD or USB stick.

How this software works?

Windows Active Directory stores the domain user passwords and other account information in a file called NTDS.dit. This file can be usually found in:\windows\ntds. This file is a part of Active Directory database and remains inaccessible as long as the domain controller is running. Hence, it is necessary that you boot off your computer and access this NTDS.dit file via the boot disk. This tool intelligently gains access to this file and will reset/change the password associated with administrator or any other domain user account.

How to break domain controller password without logging in?

The steps involves burning a Live CD on another accessible computer, and then boot up your domain controller with the Live CD so you can break domain controller without even logging in.

  1. Download the Reset Windows Password utility. Unzip the download file and you’ll get a ResetWindowsPwd.iso file.
  2. Burn the ISO image file to a blank CD using any burning program (we recommend BurnCDCC) that can burn ISO images.
  3. After you have the Live CD, bring it to boot off your domain controller whose password you want to break. You’ll see that the computer will load some files inside the Live CD and launch the Reset Windows Password utility.
  4. Click on the Reset Active Directory Password option, then choose the Active Directory ntds.dit database file from the drop-down list. It will display the domain user accounts and you can find which account is password-protected, locked out or disabled.
  5. Choose a user account and then click on the Reset Password button, it will break your domain account and change the forgotten/unknown password to a new one: Password123.
  6. Now remove the Live CD and restart the computer, you can then log in to your domain user account with the new password.

With the Live CD you can also use it to reset local admin/user passwords on Windows Server 2008/2003/2000 and Windows 8/7/Vista/XP. It’s a must-have Live CD for network administrators and system administrators.

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How to Reset Domain Administrator Password on Windows Server 2008/2003/2000

June 12th, 2012 by Admin

An important part of any client/server network architecture is the user accounts that are created in the domain. User accounts are known as domain accounts as they are authenticated by the domain controller and can be logged on using any computer that is a member of the domain. As an administrator of any LAN infrastructure you are required to handle several tasks in a day and manage hundreds of passwords in order to make the network infrastructure run smoothly.

If someone in your organization forgot his domain user password, we can log on the domain controller using administrator account to help him reset the password to a new one. But if we forgot domain administrator password, we’ll lose full control over the domain controller. It might sometimes cause a big inconvenience if we need to access the domain controller urgently.

Here I’ll show you an easy way to reset Windows domain password on Windows Server 2008/2003/2000. Unlock domain controller instantly if you forgot domain administrator password or you are locked out of the computer for various reasons.

How to Reset Windows Domain Administrator Password?

  1. First we need to find another computer which we can log on with administrative rights. Insert a blank CD/DVD into the CD-ROM drive in order to create a password reset disk.
  2. Download and install Password Recovery Bundle onto the computer. Launch Password Recovery Bundle, then click Windows Password button.
  3. The pop-up dialog allows you to create a password reset disk. Select your CD/DVD device and then click Start Burn button. The password reset disk will be fine after a while.
  4. Boot your domain controller from the password reset disk. You may need to modify computer’s BIOS setting and set CD/DVD as the 1st boot device.
  5. Once the boot procedure is complete, the password reset disk will launch the Reset Windows Password utility.
  6. Choose your Active Directory database (ntds.dit) file from the drop-down list. It’ll immediately display a list of domain user accounts.
  7. Select the administrator account and then click Reset Password button. After confirmation, the domain administrator password will be set to Password123 by default.

Now eject the password reset disk and restart the domain controller, you can then immediately log in to Windows Server with the new domain administrator password. With the password reset disk in your hand, no need to worry about forgetting domain user account passwords again!

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How to Change Active Directory Password on Windows Server 2008/2003/2000

May 26th, 2012 by Admin

One of the prominent services of Windows Server is Active directory. Active directory manages user accounts and the permissions  granted to them from a single point. System administrator, the user of server system with administrator privileges, has the right to grant or revoke domain user’s privileges, create user account, set or reset password, etc.

With all the important functions handled from the server, what will happen if you forget Active Directory password, or it happens that an ignorant system administrator leaves the job without telling the password to anyone else? Question arises, “How to reset Active Directory Password?” There are many manual methods and third party tools available to help you out from the critical situation.

Windows Server account can be categorized as local account and domain controller account. This means that you cannot use the Active Directory service when you login through local account. With Password Recovery Bundle we can easily reset local account password and change active directory password.  In this tutorial we’ll only show you how to change Active Directory password on Windows Server 2008/2003/2000.

Step 1: Create a Active Directory Password Reset CD

  1. First download and install Password Recovery Bundle on another computer you have access to.
  2. Launch the program and click Windows Password button.
  3. Insert a blank CD/DVD into the CD drive and then click Start Burn to create a Active Directory Password Reset CD.

Step 2: Change Active Directory Password

  1. To have your domain controller to boot from the Active Directory Password Reset CD, you may need to change the BIOS settings to set CD/DVD as the 1t boot device.
  2. Insert the Active Directory Password Reset CD  into the CD drive of your domain controller and start the computer.
  3. Now that the computer is booting from the CD, an initial set up screen that says the computer is loading files will be displayed.
  4. When the screen of Reset Windows Password appears,  select a Active Directory user and then click Reset Password button.
  5. The program will change the Active Directory password to Password123 by default.

Reboot the domain controller and eject the Active Directory Password Reset CD, you’ll be able to log on the domain controller using your Active Directory user account.

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