Software & Apps Windows I Forgot My Windows XP Password! Can I Do Anything About It? Some ways to get back in if you've forgotten your XP password By Tim Fisher General Manager, VP, Lifewire.com Tim Fisher has 30+ years' professional technology support experience. He writes troubleshooting content and is the General Manager of Lifewire. our editorial process Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Tim Fisher Updated March 19, 2020 Windows The Ultimate Laptop Buying Guide Tweet Share Email We're supposed to make secure, difficult-to-guess passwords, but sometimes we make them so complicated that we forget them ourselves. Windows XP—although it's long out-of-date and no longer supported—offers several procedures for recovering a locked-out account. Use Your Windows XP Password Reset Disk Assuming you were proactive and created a Windows XP password reset disk at some point in the past, use it at the XP logon screen to change your password. Your password reset disk will still work even if you've changed your Windows XP password since creating the disk. Have Another User Change Your XP Password for You If there are other users that have accounts on your computer, one of them might be set up with administrator-level access. This account can change your Windows XP password for you. Changing another user's password is easy through Control Panel. Alternatively, open the Start menu, right-click My Computer, and go to Manage > Local Users and Groups > Users to reset another user's password. Hack Your Windows XP Account With a Password Recovery Program Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. If you've given it your best shot but that all-important Windows XP password is still hiding somewhere in your mind, then it's time to try something a bit more technical. Windows password recovery tools are software programs designed to recover or reset/delete your Windows XP password. They can sometimes be difficult to use but if there's no hope of remembering the password and you can follow some simple directions, Windows password recovery tools are life savers. Stick to using a password recovery tool that we recommend in that list or one from a reputable company that you trust. It's common for password resetting and deleting tools to contain malware. Still Can't Find Your Windows XP Password? If you still can't locate your password, even after using the free Windows password recovery programs linked above, you'll need to perform a clean install of Windows XP. It's a drastic and destructive step, but Windows XP is serious about security. Just make sure to back up your important files before performing the reinstall. A clean Windows install erases everything on your computer, including all your installed programs, pictures and videos you've downloaded or copied to your computer, everything on your Desktop, etc. How to Avoid Resetting Your Windows XP Password If you've already misplaced your password, then you clearly have no option but to follow one of the many methods above to get it back or to reset the whole operating system. Protect yourself to avoid this whole recovery process again. How to Choose a Secure Password You Can Remember To protect your new Windows XP password, no matter how long or strange it may be, store it in a password manager. Using one of those programs is really handy because you can make your password very difficult to guess but still have access to it should you need to remember it. Use a password manager that has mobile access since you, of course, will need it before you log in to Windows. If you're tired of entering your Windows XP password each time you log in, delete your user password or set up auto login. Those methods are definitely not secure, for obvious reasons, but they avoid having to enter a password to log in.