My experience regaining Admin access on a Windows PC with a forgotten Admin password

The PC in question was running on Windows 10 with two accounts, one with administrator permissions and the other with guest permissions. The client had forgotten the password to the Admin account so actions were restricted. Every time the client tried to carry out specific activities from the guest account, there was a User Access Control (UAC) prompt with a missing yes button.

This was how I knew that it was a guest account. The ‘Family and others’ option was also missing in the Control Panel.

At this juncture, I had two options:

1. Reinstall Windows 10 (keep files but discard software and settings)
2. Find a way to regain Admin access on the PC

The problem with reinstalling Windows was the loss of programs and settings so this became plan B.

Regaining Admin Access On The PC

First I created a portable version of Windows 10 on a USB storage device. Next, I powered off the PC and got it into BIOS (you keep tapping F10 after pressing the power button). While in BIOS, I changed the boot order by placing USB devices at the top, then saved and shut down.

Next up I connected the USB flash drive to the PC and powered it up. This got me into the Windows Setup screen. From this point, plan B seemed feasible at least.

I clicked Next and instead of clicking Install Now, I clicked Repair your computer. At the Choose an option screen, I clicked Troubleshoot. Under Advanced options, I clicked Command Prompt.

While in the command prompt, I ran

c:

The plan was to add an admin user using the net commands so I ran the following commands

net start workstation
net user /add Hovatek justabuttonaway
net localgroup users hovatek /add
net localgroup administrators hovatek /add
exit

What I’d tried to do with the above commands was to create a user named Hovatek with a password justabuttonaway then add the user to both users and administrator local groups.

After rebooting the PC to the login screen, I couldn’t find a user named Hovatek. I had to use a different approach.

Escalating from Guest to Administrator account type

Back in the command prompt, I ran the following commands to change Ease Of Access to a command prompt in the Windows 10 login screen:

c:
cd windows
cd system32
ren utilman.exe utilman2.exe
copy cmd.exe utilman.exe
exit

After rebooting into the login screen, I clicked the ease of access icon at the bottom right corner.

I had to click a few times before the command prompt came up. Once cmd came up, I ran the following command:

control userpasswords2

This brought up User Accounts.

I clicked the Admin account but the button to reset the password was greyed out (requires Ctrl + Alt + Delete to do so). I would’ve needed the old password anyway so this was of little use. I clicked the guest account instead and then I clicked Properties. Under properties, I clicked the Group Membership tab, ticked Administrator, clicked Apply then clicked OK.

Finally, I logged into the (previously) guest account and it was now an administrator account.

Cleaning Up

I went back into BIOS and put the hard disk back on top of the list under boot order then headed to C:\Windows\System32 and renamed utilman2.exe back to utilman.exe .