What to do when you lose your Windows 10 password?

4 min. read

Updated onMarch 4, 2024

updated onMarch 4, 2024

Share this article

Improve this guide

Read our disclosure page to find out how can you help Windows Report sustain the editorial teamRead more

Protecting yourWindows 10account with a password is always a great idea, however, it can happen that you sometimes forget or lose your Windows 10 password. This is a very unpleasant situation because you cannot access Windows 10 at all, but fortunately there’s a way to recover lost Windows 10 password.

I lost my Windows 10 password, how to reset it?

Solution 1 – Go to Microsoft’s password reset website

If you use your Microsoft account to log in to Windows 10, you can easily reset your password by going to the Microsoft’s password reset website. To reset your Microsoft account password, you need to do the following:

Solution 2 – Use Windows 10 installation media and Command Prompt

This is a more advanced solution, and in order to perform it successfully you’ll need a Windows 10 installation media, such as a DVD or USB. After you’ve obtained the installation media, you need to go to BIOS and set your installation media as the first boot device. For detailed instructions on how to do that, check your motherboard manual. Once you’ve set your installation media as the first boot device, you need to start Windows 10 setup and do the following:

We have to mention that this solution works only for local accounts, and if you use Microsoft account to log in, you should try our previous solution. By using this method you won’t be able to access any encrypted files, so keep that in mind.

Even if you use Microsoft account to log in to Windows 10, by creating a new user account you should be able to access your personal files and folders and copy them to your newly created account in case you cannot reset your Microsoft account password.

We also have a guide on how toreset Windows 7 password without logging in, so you might want to check it out.

Being unable to log in to your Windows 10 account can be a big problem, but we hope that our solutions have been helpful to you.

What to do when you lose your Windows 10 password?#

I lost my Windows 10 password, how to reset it?#

Solution 1 – Go to Microsoft’s password reset website#

Solution 2 – Use Windows 10 installation media and Command Prompt#

What to do when you lose your Windows 10 password?

I lost my Windows 10 password, how to reset it?

Solution 1 – Go to Microsoft’s password reset website

Solution 2 – Use Windows 10 installation media and Command Prompt