Password recovery tools
Password recovery tools are used to recover lost user and administrator passwords used to log on to Windows.
Password recovery tools are often called “password cracking” tools because they are sometimes used to “crack” passwords by hackers. Legally cracking your own password is certainly a legitimate and often necessary practice!
Many password recovery tools cost hundreds of dollars. Here are some free password recovery tools that will help recover forgotten Windows passwords fast!
1. Ophcrack
The Ophcrack Windows password cracker is by far the best free Windows password recovery tool available. It’s fast and easy enough for a first time password cracker with a basic knowledge of Windows.
With Ophcrack, you don’t need any access to Windows to be able to recover your lost passwords. Simply visit the site, download the free ISO image, burn it to a CD and boot to the CD. The Ophrack program starts, locates the Windows user accounts, and proceeds to recover (crack) the passwords – all automatically.
In a test on my PC, Ophcrack recovered the 7-digit password to my administrator account in two minutes.
2. Cain & Abel
Cain & Abel is a free, fast and effective Windows password recovery tool.
Unlike Ophcrack, Cain & Abel is a more traditional software application and does require access to Windows under a particular user account. Due to this fact, Cain & Abel is often a valuable resource to recover passwords to accounts other than the one you’re using, including the administrator account.
Cain & Abel should only be used by more experienced users because of its more complicated setup and other advanced features.
In the best of my tests, Cain & Abel recovered the 7-digit password to my administrator account in eight minutes.
3. LCP
LCP is yet another free and very effective password recovery software tool for Windows.
Like Cain & Abel, LCP is a standard Windows program you download from LCPSoft’s website and install inside of Windows.
LCP can be a little intimidating to those new to password recovery tools so some prior knowledge is very helpful to avoid even bigger problems with your PC.
In my test with LCP, my 7-digit administrator password was discovered in just under ten minutes.
4. John The Ripper
John the Ripper is a very popular free password recovery tool that can be used to find Windows account passwords.
While the password recovery application itself is free, the wordlists used by John the Ripper to discover passwords do cost and are required for the software to work. There may be free wordlist alternatives that work with John the Ripper but I have not tested them.
John the Ripper is operated at the command line making it a password cracking tool reserved for the very advanced user.
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