How to Reset your Windows XP VMWare password

If you ever lost your Windows Login password, that could be a very heart wrenching feeling. Don’t Panic! This process works for both physical machines as well as Virtual VMWare Images.  I’ll take you through the steps.

1) First, if you are trying to recover / reset a password on a virtual VMWare image, you first mucy edit the *.vmx file that is found in your VMWare directory. Go to your VMWare image (on a Mac, right click on it and show package contents)

2) Next Open a Terminal Windows (Control Panels – Terminal)

3) Type sudo vi in the terminal window (Do Not press Return yet)

4) Next, drag and drop the *.vmx file into the terminal window and hit return

5) Edit this file and enter this information on the first line:

bios.forceSetupOnce = “TRUE”

6) Save and quit out of that VI session

7) Next download the Offline NT & Password Registry Editor from here

8 ) With you VMMachine shut down, start it and attach the ISO image that was unzipped from your download.

9) When your VM Instance Boots, you will be in the BIOS. Change the BIOS settings so that your VM Image first boots from the CDROM. Then Save and Exit changes

10) Reboot your VM image

11) A CLI (Command Line Interface) will appear.

12) Follow the steps outlined HERE. Pretty much take the defaults by simply pressing return.

13) Eventually you will see a list of system user accounts. Select the user you want to clear the password and clear (delete) that password.

14) Save quit and shutdown you VM image.

15) Edit the *.vmx file again and change: bios.forceSetupOnce = “TRUE” to bios.forceSetupOnce = “FALSE”

16) Save your changes and exit the VI session.

17) Reboot

18) Login