https://youtu.be/RCInsJ6BLjY?si=1a2wUVjed_kpSpm0

TipsNNTricks shows how to bypass the login password without a recovery CD or without any software. It does require physical access to the system (or a way to trigger a recovery boot); but this really helps if you found an old hard drive or system and can’t remember the password from eons ago.

You first boot in recovery mode. You then gain access to the drive by opening a debug message which opens notepad. This allows you to do File…Open and look at all the files on the C drive. You rename the ‘c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe’ to something else (bak or whatever), then make a copy of cmd.exe and name it sethc.exe in the same directory as the original sethc.exe.

When windows reboots, you can then press the shift key 5 times to trigger hotkeys (sethc.exe), and it will open a cmd prompt instead. Then use net use to reset the password for your accounts and you can log in. Clever!