"I Forgot My Windows Vista Password! How Do I Find My Lost Password?

Question: "I Forgot My Windows Vista Password! How Do I Find My Lost Password?

So you forgot your Windows Vista password? Don't worry - it happens to the best of us. We're supposed to use secure passwords by making them difficult to remember but sometimes we make them so hard to remember that we forget them ourselves!
Answer: There are a several ways to find your forgotten password!
We'll start with the easy way...

Before we jump in to the high tech recovery method, try your hardest to remember what your password may have been. Most passwords, even complicated ones, are often inspired by people, places and things in your personal or professional life.

Could your password have had anything to do with:

* your name?
* the name of a friend or family member?
* a loved one's birthday?
* your home or office address?
* a pet's name?
* a favorite food?
* a frequently dialed telephone number?
* something from your childhood?
* a combination of any of the above?

For some more help remembering, check out my guide on guessing your own password.
Are there any other users on your PC?

If there are other users that have accounts on your PC, one of them may be setup with administrator access. This means that the user would be able to change your password for you from within his or her account. If there are other accounts, try logging on and giving it a try.
Now for the slightly harder way...

If you've given it your best shot but that all-important password is still hiding somewhere in your mind, then it's time for something more powerful.

Password recovery tools are software tools designed to guess your password. Many of them work by making super-fast guess after guess until the password is discovered. They can sometimes be difficult to use but if you really need in and there's no hope of remembering the password, password recovery tools are life savers.

Assuming you remember your password or get in another way, you may want to think about creating a password reset disk for Windows Vista. As long as you can keep track of the disk you'll never have to worry about forgetting your password again!
Still can't find find your password?

If you still can't locate your password, even after using the password recovery tools linked above, you will need to perform a clean install of Windows Vista which will erase everything on your PC. It's drastic and destructive but Windows Vista is serious about security.