Lost PW for W10 and how to get access to delete?

Sparkchaser

My computer is old and this shows me how old. There is still a sign on for my grandkid. Trying to get rid of what ever they had on the computer but I don’t know the PW and so it seems neither do they.

Any recommendations on gaining access?

dave

There are 3rd-party bootable tools that allow you to edit the account definitions. I’ve used one successfully up through WIndows 7; I forget the name, and the thumb drive is only labelled “password reset”.

But how “old” can a computer running Windows 10 be? Can’t you just do a clean install of the OS? This solves the lost-password and the cleanup issues at the same time.

Sparkchaser

dave But how “old” can a computer running Windows 10 be?

Good point, I probably updated the OS.

bennor

Sparkchaser If you are logged in as the administrator then you should be able to delete any other account on the Windows PC. Otherwise if you want to nuke the entire drive or restore Windows to default wiping out all accounts there are methods to do so.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/experience/backup-recovery/reset-your-pc

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5582274/how-can-i-safely-delete-one-or-more-windows-user-a

https://www.wikihow.com/Delete-User-Accounts-in-Windows-10

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-wipe-your-hard-drive

https://www.minitool.com/partition-disk/bootable-usb-to-wipe-hard-drive.html

https://www.easeus.com/emergency-disk/create-bootable-usb-to-wipe-hard-drive.html

Edit to add: And there may be free or paid tools out there that might be able to recover or reset Windows user passwords.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-reset-a-forgotten-windows-10-password

https://www.wintips.org/how-to-log-in-to-windows-11-10-if-you-forgot-your-password/

https://www.easeus.com/emergency-disk/free-download-windows-password-reset-software.html

Somewhat-Reticent

Are there tools to save setup, apps & settings❔

Guy54435

Hiren’s BootCD PE. is able to do it.

dave

bennor

Oh - I assumed the OP knew no password at all. If you can get logged in as an admin you can reset the password of another account without knowing the current one.

bennor

Somewhat-Reticent Yes there are various programs available to save the current windows configuration and settings. If nothing else one can create a backup, again various programs exist for backing up a PC.

Sparkchaser

Thanks for all the comments. Just came out of an 18 hour power outage so haven’t tried anything.

dave

Let us know whether you know any admin user+password at all, so we can focus on the right solution – as observed above, there are different cases to consider.

Sparkchaser

dave Let us know whether you know any admin user+password at all, so we can focus on the right solution

Soooo, I went in as admin as you suggested and deleted the user. It also deleted whatever data the user had but I’m sure I didn’t want to know.