Reset Lost SA Password in SQL Server 2008 Express

Lost or forgot your SA password? The SA account got locked out or disabled after too many login attempts? Don't panic. With SQL Server Password Changer you can reset SA password and unlock your SQL Server account easily. In this tutorial I'll show you how to unlock / reset SA password in SQL Server 2008 Express.

How to Reset SA Password in SQL Server 2008 Express?

The SA login is stored in the master database (master.mdf) file, but this file is inaccessible while SQL Server is running. To unlock SA account in SQL Server, you need to first stop your SQL Server instance, and then install SQL Server Password Changer on your local computer.

Start the SQL Server Password Changer program. Click on Open File button and select the master database (master.mdf) for your SQL Server instance. By default, the master.mdf file resides in the following location:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA

After you've chosen the master database file, the program will analyze the file format and extract all database users from it. Choose the SA account and click on Change Password button. In the pop-up window, enter your desired new password and click OK.



The program will assign your new password to the SA account, and also enable / unlock the SA account when it is disabled or locked out. Start your SQL Server instance and you can then successfully connect to your SA account using your new password. Done!

How to Bypass Windows 7 Password without CD

Forgot your Windows 7 administrator password and don't have a CD or USB drive at hand? In this tutorial we'll show you a simple way to Bypass Windows 7 password without CD.

Of course, if you do have a PCUnlocker Live CD, you can bypass your password the easy way with a few mouse clicks. The following trick works with local account only. If you're using a Microsoft Account to login to your computer, you can also use PCUnlocker to reset lost Microsoft Account password.

How to Bypass Windows 7 Password without CD?

1. Turn on your computer. While the computer is coming up and you can see it saying "Starting Windows". Hold down the Power button for at least 5 seconds to force power off your computer.
2. When a sudden power loss is detected, the next time you turn on your computer and it will ask you if you want to launch startup repair or start normally. Choose the Launch Startup Repair (recommended) menu.
3. Startup Repair will boot up and take a little while. When it asks you if you want to restore your computer to an earlier point, click Cancel.
4. The Startup Repair Tool begins analyzing startup log files for clues as to the source of the problem and then launches a series of diagnostic tests to determine the cause of the startup failure. After a long time, you will get a dialog saying that Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically! Click on View problem details.
5. Now scroll down to the end of the Detail Report. Click on the last link to read Microsoft's offline privacy statement.
6. Notepad will come up with the privacy statement in it. Click on the File menu and then Open.
7. In the File Open dialog box, change the Files of type option to All Files. Browse to the Sticky Keys application – C:\windows\system32\sethc.exe. Rename this file as a backup file: I named it "sethc-copy".
8. Now find the cmd.exe file in the same folder. This is your Command Prompt. rename it to sethc.exe. Then close out of all the dialog boxes and Finish, so that the computer restarts.
9. Once you get to the Windows login screen, hit the Shift key 5 times and it will open the Command Prompt window instead of the Sticky Keys application.
10. Now to reset the password – just type the following command, replacing the username and password with the combination you want:
    reset user top-password.com 123456
11. Close the Command Prompt and you should be able to log on to Windows with your new password.

That's it! You've successfully bypass Windows 7 password without a CD.

How to Recover Chrome Stored Password on Your Own

How to recover the stored passwords from Chrome browser? There are situations that we need to export Chrome stored password, and transfer the saved password to a new Chrome installation on another computer.

With all versions of Google Chrome, the passwords are stored in a small SQLite database which contains a table named logins. The passwords is, obviously for security reasons, not stored in plain text. Rather, they are encrypted, so we need to use a Google Chrome password recovery tool to recover saved Chrome passwords.

In this article I'll walk you through the steps of recovering Chrome stored password with Password Recovery Bundle. The program could be used to retrieve passwords from Internet Explorer, Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, SeaMonkey and Chrome.

To get started, download and install Password Recovery Bundle on your computer. After installing, start the program and click on "Start Recovery" button. This program will display a list of password recovery options.



Navigate to the "Chrome Password" option and click on it. The program will automatically search the SQLite database that is used by Google Chrome to stored password, and then decrypt the login information and show you all saved passwords immediately.

How to Recover SeaMonkey Saved Password with Ease

Can I recover email account password from SeaMonkey? Forgot the password stored in SeaMonkey but you need to use your email account on another computer? Don't worry! There is an easy way to decrypt and extract passwords from SeaMonkey profile. With the Firefox Password Recovery program you can recover SeaMonkey password easily!

Firefox Password Recovery is small utility that allows you to recover saved passwords from Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Flock. Here we'll walk you through the process of recovering SeaMonkey saved passwords.

How to Recover SeaMonkey Saved Passwords?

1. Download the setup package of Firefox Password Recovery program on your computer.
2. Once you've downloaded it, double-click the setup file to install it.
3. Start the Firefox Password Recovery program. Click on the Start Recovery button, it will provide you with 5 recovery options.
4. Choose the Recover SeaMonkey Password option. It will automatically find your SeaMonkey profile and retrieve all the saved passwords of your email accounts immediately.

Windows Password Expired and Can't Log Into Windows

Windows password expired and can't log into Windows? Many of you might have seen the message "Your password has expired and must be changed" at log-on, if you haven't changed Windows user password for a long time.



In this tutorial we'll show you two options to disable the password expiration for a Windows user account in Windows 8, 7, Vista or XP. So the password expiration notification will never appear again at login.

 

Option 1: Disable Password Expiration with Command Prompt

This method requires you to log on Windows with admin rights. Password expiration can promote system security by forcing you to change your password on a regular basis. But in certain circumstances it may cause some inconvenience. Follow these steps you can turn off password expiration for all Windows accounts:

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt. In Windows 8 or 8.1, you can press the Windows and X keys together and then click on Command Prompt (Admin).
2. At the Command Prompt, simply run the following command which sets your Windows password to never expire.

   net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited

Someone may suggest you to use this command: net user Administrator /expires:never. But this will set your account to never expire, NOT the password. You can find out the differences by reading this article: Differences Between User Account Expiration and Password Expiration.

 

Option 2: Remove Password Expiration with PCUnlocker

Can't log in after your Windows password expires? Or Can't change the expired password because you've forgotten the old password? Just boot your computer from PCUnlocker Live CD, you can reset an expired password for any Windows user account.

1. Download the PCUnlocker program using another computer. The download file is self-extracting .zip archive which contains an ISO image.
2. Extract the ISO image from the zip file, and then burn it to a blank CD (or USB flash drive) using any CD burning program such as ISO2Disc or ImgBurn.
3. Put the CD in the CD drive of the computer with an expired Windows password. Change the boot order in BIOS and get the computer to boot from CD.
4. After booting into the CD, the PCUnlocker program will start and it displays a list of Windows local accounts on your system. Choose an expired account and click on Reset Password button.
5. The program will remove the password and also set your account password to never expire.

Besides resetting an expired Windows password, you can also use PCUnlocker to unlock a disabled or locked user account in Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP.

Things to Backup Before Reinstalling Windows 7

If your PC has been infected by a virus or has become slow to the point of being unusable, reinstalling Windows may be the best and quickest solution. But I always forget something like backing up product keys and email accounts. So, you are probably wondering what to backup before reinstalling Windows. Here's a checklist of the things you should do before you make a clean install of Windows. Well, let's take a look.

Stored Logins and Passwords

If you are using your browser to store the passwords for Web sites, you will be in for a rude awakening after reinstalling Windows – they will be gone. Your browser is a poor place to keep your website logins and passwords. Besides backing up website passwords, you might also need to export your email account settings (POP3, SMTP and passwords), and passwords stored in your FTP software, instant messengers and other applications.

If you can't remember your passwords, you can take use of the Password Recovery Bundle program. This program can help you retrieve stored passwords from all popular instant messengers, email clients, web browsers, FTP clients and many other applications. After recovering, write down and back up them in a safe place because you need them after you reinstall Windows.

A List of Programs and License Keys

Reinstallation of Windows means that you are putting a new copy of the operating system on your hard drive, which will essentially delete all of the programs you installed. In order to restore your original settings and to know what programs you need to reinstall later, you might want to create a list of all the programs on the computer before reinstalling Windows.

Some of your core apps or drivers may be on DVD, CD, or comes as an ISO image. Pull out your media and set it in a stack ready for reinstallation later. It’s also important to keep track of valuable license keys for your Windows, Office or other programs installed on the local machine. While you can do this manually by typing the license keys up in a text document, there is a very easy way to do this, especially if you have KeyFinder Plus installed on your computer. All you need is to open KeyFinder Plus, click on the "Start Recovery" button then click "Save To File" and choose where you want to save it. From here, you can then back up all your license keys in a single file.

Emails, Address Book and Bookmarks

If you store your emails and your email address book on your PC via an email client, then you will want to back up your e-mail and address book before reinstalling Windows. This applies to you if you use a program like Outlook, Lotus, or Thunderbird. If you use a web-based email client like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, then you won't have to worry about this. Also, if you would like to keep the bookmarks for your favorite Web sites, then you should back these up as well.

Important Documents, Video Files and Photos

Most people don't want to lose their important photos, videos, or documents when reinstalling Windows. Before reinstalling Windows, make sure you backup all the important video and audio files as well as pictures to your storage media (DVD, USB drive or external hard drive) where they cannot be tampered with. By default, Windows will store these in sub-folders under the "My Documents" or "Documents" folder.

Conclusion

The above list is just about what you need to backup before installing Windows. However, you can also take an image of your whole hard drive using Norton Ghost so you won't lose anything.

How to Bypass Windows 7 Login / Logon Screen

Tired of having to type in a password every time you want to log into Windows? Forgot Windows password and didn't know how to get back on your computer? In this tutorial we're going to show you how to bypass Windows 7 login screen and gain access to your computer without entering a password.

How to Bypass Windows 7 Login Screen?

If you're the only person with access to your computer, you can have Windows boot straight to the Desktop without prompting you for a login password. It's easy to bypass Windows login screen and the instructions below will show you how to do it.

Step #1: Press Windows + R to open the Run command, type netplwiz or control userpasswords2 and press Enter.


Step #2: Under the Users tab, uncheck the Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer option, click Ok.


Step #3: Now enter the existing password in Automatically Log On dialog window, click OK, restart your Computer.


You won't be prompted to enter your password next time you turn on or restart your computer.

Forgot Windows 7 Password? How to Bypass Windows 7 Login Screen?

The method above requires you to know the existing Windows password on your computer. How to bypass Windows login screen if you forgot your password? In this situation, you need to remove your forgotten Windows password in order to bypass Windows login screen. Follow these step-by-step instructions:

Step #1: Download the PCUnlocker program and save it on an alternate PC which you have full access to. Unzip the download file and you'll get the pcunlocker.iso file. Burn the ISO image to an empty CD (or USB flash drive) using ISO2Disc program.

Step #2: Simply insert the CD into your locked computer and restart it. You may have to call up the boot menu by pressing F12 or something, but it may automatically boot from the CD drive you inserted.

Step #3: Once the computer boots up from the CD, it will open up the PCUnlocker program. Select a user account and then click on "Reset Password" button. It will remove Windows 7 password instantly.

Step #4: Remove the CD and restart the computer. Normally the computer will then boot directly into the Desktop without requiring you to enter a password. However, the Windows login screen might still appear even if you are using a blank password. If you're that case, just press OK to log on your computer. After getting into Windows, you can use the method above to enable automatic logon feature.