Re: Win10 password?

Robert Baer wrote:


>    Thanks.
>    With only 2 SATA ports, i will BAERly make it possible.

It seems since the last time I used the hacks, Windows 10
is hardened a lot more than it used to be.

Some of it is semi-accidental, such as Microsoft using

compact.exe /compactos:query

compact.exe /compactos:never    <=== user fights back by removing compression

compact.exe /compactos:always   <=== places new-style compression reparse
                                      points on system32 files or similar areas

This matters when you need to hack some files from Linux.

*******

For an example, this "official" page offers local resetting
of password based on your security questions. Which of course,
you didn't set. Someone else did. You won't know which security
questions and what the answers are.

The second option is a "Reset" of the PC to start over again.
If done from the hard drive, this is likely to need a recovery
partition (on Refurbisher, that is not there).

You can also make a USB stick in advance. I did
that once, and you need a working reagentc /info for the making
of the stick to succeed. On several occasions, my reagentc wasn't
enabled or wasn't pointed at the right place, so a person could be
forgiven if they said this was "too hard to prepare". This is a
corny way of restoring C: , and I presume it requests account
setup when finished. That's when you get to define a password.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/reset-your-windows-local-account-password-86912508-e584-37cc-86eb-6e9b0542b5ba

*******

There used to be some hacks involving sethc.exe (sticky keys),
osk.exe (onscreen keyboard for entering password), and utilman.exe.
You select these functions, and cmd.exe pops up instead.

Some of these have been covered by Windows Defender. If Windows
Defender was disabled, they might still works, but what are the
odds you run that way.

https://www.trustedsec.com/blog/playing-with-old-hacks/

Now, you're saying "he has some that work!". Yes, but the
thing is, we need to do some rename commands and that
stuff is owned by trustedinstaller or something. This means,
if booting using an installer DVD, using "Troubleshooting",
then Command Prompt, we still might not be allowed to rename
files and mess around from the Win side of the pond.

Anyway, I've had to do a restore of my Win10 while messing
around, and it's going to be a while before I can try some
things. It looks like the CHKDSK on C: is going to take *Hours*.

    Paul