How To > Gain Full System Access to Windows
So you want way more power over your windows machine than you probably should have:
As a smartass and a computer guy I like to know all sorts of sneaky ways to get things done. So when I find out about a quick way to get more power over a windows system in only a min or two, I listen, test and then share. Now I can think of many reasons why you would want to have system access to a machine, but in this tutorial lets just say you forget the passwords to all your administrator accounts. Don’t laugh, I have met countless people who have done so back when I was fixing computers for a living. In this case you have 3 options:
1) Download a linux based NTFS password changer and burn to cd. This works well however the terminology will probably confuse people since it’s all about finding and editing the Hive of a SAM file.
2) Call a local computer company to fix. Doing this they will probably just do step 1 if they know what they are doing, if they don’t they will try to login to Administrator in safe mode and in failing to do so will convince you that they need to erase you computer.
3) Turn your non-admin account or guest account into a hardcore system account and simply change the password.
We will follow choice 3. It’s super easy and I have tested it myself. In my usual fashion I will keep this short without a lot of excess text, because then if you understand it, it’s short enough to remember without having to reference back!
1) Start > Run > cmd.exe > type: at 12:03 /interactive “cmd.exe” (replace 12:03 with a time 2 mins from now). > close command prompt
2) New command prompt will open, when it does > Hit CTRL+ALT+DEL > find explorer.exe and End Process.
3) At command prompt type: cd.. > type: explorer.exe
If you have never done this before it may take a few seconds to create a new profile, but then you will see the user System in the start menu as user name.
Be warned, this account is scary powerful, this is basically root on a windows machine. So try not to delete any important system files etc..
10 Comments to How To > Gain Full System Access to Windows
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Tony07/30
Hi,
I just stumbled across your page and it is really exciting to see someone with a little NEW content. I’m a hardware freak, but I’m not so into software manipulation. This page has easy, step by step instructions on how to do useful things. Thanks for your time and effort. I just used your trick to create a system account. Could have used this a hundred times in situations before! I work on friends’ computers often and I’ll remember this trick! Thanks again. BTW, if I’m working on a friends computer, would it be smart to create an account only I use to make a system account, so they don’t get a access to the crazy features I get? Thanks.
Tony
Hey thanks man,
always glad to hear when somebody liked something I wrote before I see it copied / hotlinked from my site ; )
Be sure to check out the rest of thesmartass.info !
Mr. Smith06/06
OH MY DEAR LORD!
1st Thank you for discovering this useful trick! Brilliant!
2nd If you have any other methods please email me anything else
3rd My father who rocks with computers has this program he wont share that allows him to see a users password! He wont share so I was curious if you knew a way to discover another accounts password. Only discover, I know how to change
Yeah, that’s easy… http://www.nirsoft.net/ nirsoft makes a free utility for virtually every type of password that exists on a windows machine and more.
A lot of them will show up in virus scans, but if you read the description it just lists it as an exploit. I use these in doing pc repair, so they are totally safe and virus free.
Mr Zii06/19
Very nice little trick, just tried it.. works on admin account.
but when i create a limited user account, and try it.. it says Access Denied.
(Windows XP SP2)
maybe they have patched it. When I first wrote this I was able to do that trick from limited user accounts without any trouble.
Either way, if it doesn’t work anymore from guest accounts etc.. it’s still helpful since system level access lets you delete pretty much anything which is often very hard to do while fixing a computer.
Mr. Smith [Again]07/01
Hey BS,
I tried this trick also as a limited user, but no success.
Same problem as Mr Zii so I was wondering if you got
a way for a “limited user” to gain system priveledges etc.
and also find an admin accounts password
>Nirsoft.net … sort of useless for my purpose…
PLEASE I’ve been searching 4 a solution 4 a while
If it doesn’t work anymore from limited users I don’t know a good way to do it. Most computers have at least one admin account and I would suggest getting a bootable linux NTFS password changer and just removing or changing the password of one of the admin users.
05/23