How to recover lost Windows passwords


Many of us have a love-hate relationship with passwords. They're great for dissuading youngsters from logging onto our machines and wreaking havoc with our files, but they're just as likely to turn around and bite us. Forget an obscure, intricately crafted password and you're in a world of pain. 

It's true that all versions of Windows enable you to create password recovery discs, but what do you do if you find yourself locked out without that disc? There are several tools out there that can help you recover the forgotten password, and the best of the lot is Ophcrack.

Its key utility reads the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) files in Windows - the files that keep user account passwords in LAN Manager (LM) or NT LAN Manager (NTLM) hash format. It uses pre-computed rainbow tables to recover the passwords. Security researcher Dr Philippe Oechslin developed the tables and the tool.

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