How to Remove or Change Administrator Password In Windows XP

Sometimes you need to access your administrator account without password because you have already forgotten it. If there is a guest account created earlier, then there is no issue here. Otherwise you will need to format your computer. Here we are going to discuss a technique which you can change or remove your administrator account password without logging into your administrator account. You will need a fresh copy of Windows XP installer CD.

The administrator account provides you the full right to access your computer. Any guest account is a limited account and you could not access administrator right from this account like changing or removing administrator password, registry editing, group policy editing, etc. So it is not possible to retrieve administrator account password from here. That’s why you have to do it from boot option.

Remove or Change Administrator Account Password by Windows XP CD:

1. Insert a Windows XP disc into CD/DVD drive and reboot your computer.

2. Wait for the message “Press any key to Boot from CD or DVD”. Now press any key.

3. It will start to load the windows files from CD or DVD to your computer and after a short time there will appear  three options. Press enter to select the first option.

4. Now the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen will be appeared. Press F8 to accept the agreement.

5. Again you will be asked whether you want to repair Windows XP or not. Press R to repair. Now your hard disk will be checked and then setup will start to copy the windows files. It can take several minutes. Just after the copying  your computer will reboot automatically. Don’t press any key after rebooting. It will automatically continue the process.

6. Watch at the left side of the screen. When the “Installing Windows” is highlighted, press Shift + F10 to open DOS prompt.

Type NUSRMGR.CPL and press Enter. It allows you to access your user account.

7. Enter into your administrator account and change or remove admin password within a second. It’s not required to put the previous password. From here you can create a new user account also.

Now after the repair is done, log on into your system with the newly created password. This procedure will work with all the versions of Windows XP.

If your CD/DVD drive does not work properly, you can also create a bootable Windows XP USB drive and do a boot from USB drive. Note that you have to change the startup setting in the BIOS to boot from USB drive. Once the Windows installer boots up, you can then follow the steps 3-7 to remove/change your administrator password.