Decided to change my Windows Vista password before the weekend to keep it safe from smaller hands and then went away for three days. On returning, I brought my PC back from hibernate/standby and did so continuously till today, where I shut it down. Problem is that I have NO clue what I set that password as, and I’m pretty sure I left a hint but it doesn’t seem to be showing up, so maybe I failed on that one.

So does anyone know any workarounds? maybe a bootable utility to remove the account password? I only have the one account on the computer, so I cant resolve this through another Admin.

So you forgot your password on a Windows Vista machine that you haven’t used in a while. You would never forget a password, right? And now you need to get into the machine and don’t want to blast away and install Windows fresh. If you use Windows XP you can just boot into Safe Mode and use the built in administrator account, but if you’re in Vista that account has been disabled by default.

There is an easy way to reset Windows Vista password, but it requires that you created a password reset disk before you forgot your password. You can follow these instructions to create one in case you forgot your password.

What to do if you forgot Windows Vista password and also don’t have a password reset disk? Luckily there’s a tool that will help you reset lost Windows administrator or user passwords on Windows 7, Vista and XP. It’s called Reset Windows Password.

How to Reset Forgotten Windows Vista Password:

1. Simply download the zip file of Reset Windows Password utility which contains an .iso image file, burn it onto a CD with your favorite CD burning software.
2. Pop the CD in the CD drive of your locked PC. It will boot up a copy of  Windows PE off the CD and launch the Reset Windows Password utility. This utility automatically detects your Windows Vista installation and show all user accounts available on your Windows Vista system.
3. Select the user account whose password you forgot, then click Reset Password button to remove the password.
4. Reboot your computer and remove the CD, you’ll be able to log on Windows Vista without being asked for a password, and regain access to your computer data and files in no time.

Reset Windows Password utility is a great life saver! As long as you have physical access to a machine that’s password protected, you can reset any Windows account password and get into Windows system easily.