Resetting Windows 10 Live login account.

[onetech]

Recently had a customer call me to gain access to a business laptop. They needed the files to take over his accounts and his clients. The poor guy fell getting out of bed, banged the back of his head and now is in a coma. We had access to his email account luckily to get me started. Let the learning begin:
1. The simple solution said, just go to live login and reset the password from there. I would type in the login name, click on Forgot password and the next screen would not appear. Tried this repeatedly for about an hour, but could not get into the next pop up screen to have it resend me a new password. So, I proceeded to step 2.
2. Did a bunch of reading on how to create a new admin account by booting from a USB disk with 10 on it, renaming utilman to cmd prompt and using the net command to create an user with password and admin rights to get into the laptop. Another hour down and I had back door access to the target account. At which point I started copying his files into a folder for access later. Still could not reset the live account password, access denied to local admin tools, holy cow. At this point I am really starting to hate this Live account login and all the problems that it can create. So, I revisit step 1.
3. Again, I go to the login live page, but this time I don't type anything and I click on forgot password, and bam, the reset password screen comes up. In my error, I kept trying to start the process with this guys email address, clicking on Forgot my password, but MS didn't want any help. So, finally get a confirmation email with new password sent and now I have complete access to his laptop. First thing I did was, was convert it back to a local account and now I'm home free. Backed up all his files to an external drive and now can return this to my customer.

Long story short.
I hate Live Login accounts to start the computer.
When resetting a login live password, go straight to forgot password and then type in the pertinent info as directed.
Creating a backdoor account is fairly easy as long as you can boot to your flash drive, etc.


Hope someone could avoid the frustration I had to deal with.

[wendy oltman]

Thanks for sharing your information. But how come you did not have any idea about the 'forgot password' option. It would have have saved you a lot of frustration and time.

[onetech]

Thanks for sharing your information. But how come you did not have any idea about the 'forgot password' option. It would have have saved you a lot of frustration and time.

I kept filling in the customer email address on the initial page then clicking on forgot password, which was hanging the page and not going to the next screen. Most of the time I reset a password, most websites I have run across worked this way. It wasn't until I left that email address box blank and then clicked on Forgot password that a different page came up and then I put in the email address and answered the security stuff then I was able to get a new password.