Recovering a vista/Windows 7 password
who doesn't hate it when they get handed a computer to fix and the owner runs off with out leaving the user password to the admin account or when the owner cant remember the password but doesn't want to lose any data or OS.

well here is a rather painless way to figure out the Login password so long as you have physical access to the computer and permission from the owner. you can also run OPH crack through the network or locally install it and run it within windows but you will need to download the tables separately.The way of running OPHCrack that i am going to explain is off a live usb/dvd bootable method that allows the most % of hardware dedication being given to OPH Crack for the quickest results based off the hardware of the individual machine and it also has the tables we will be using preinstalled and setup for easy automation and doesn't require admin access to the installed OS.
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Tables [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

1.we will be using this bootable iso so go ahead and download it
OPHcrack live cd with preinstalled win7/vista free tables
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2.we will also need the newest version of pendrivelinux 1.9.2.4
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3.Plug in a usb and open pendrivelinux.For the linux distro open the drop down tab and scroll to alternative distros and select ophcrack vista/7
the second tab you will select the iso image download location
the third tab you will pick the drive letter for your usb you can easily find this by pressing the windows key+E. select the format box and then hit create.
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4.make sure that in your computers Bios options that usb boot is the highest priority.

5.boot off the usb and select the environment you want load into. for this tut go with automatic.
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6.you should now be loaded into a port of Linux and should see a window like this [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
the user name and LM/NT Hash Field's should have info in them and the auto crack functions should be running all you have to do now is wait a few minutes for it to match up the Hashes with the table and resolve the login passwords.

7. for fun you can always go into a computer running windows and go into C:/Users/"useraccount"/APPData/Roaming/Microsoft/Credentials and dump the encrypted SAM or run a PWDdump or enter a known resolved Hash manually, and crack the pass off site.



you can also run the live image in VBox/VMWare

setup for Vbox
name:OPH
Type:Linux
Version:other Linux
next
select amount of ram vbox will have acess to.
create a virtual drive now
VDI
Dynamically allocated
create
then in settings you can select to share the folder with the credentials/SAM you want to run in ophcrack from the host to the guest os.

another trick to getting into a locked windows account through linux or windows is to..
through linux live boot of ubuntu/backtrack open terminal and run these commands.

cd /media/disk/windows/system32
cp cmd.exe Utilman.exe

or through windows liveboot

C:\
cd windows\system32
ren utilman.exe utilman.exe.bak
copy cmd.exe utilman.exe

reboot into windows once at the logon click the icon on the bottom left of the screen and Command prompt will now come up
take note of the user name and then run this command

net user "username" "newpassword"

you have just changed the accounts password with out being logged into windows.