I have a Windows 7 virtual machine running in VMware Player and I have forgotten the administrator password. How can I recover or reset the password?

Forgot the administrator password for a VMware guest operating system? How to hack into a VMware Fusion image whose admin password is not known? In this tutorial we’ll show you an easy way to reset forgotten administrator password for your Windows virtual machine running in VMware.

How to Reset Forgotten Admin Password for Any Windows Virtual Machine in VMware?

First, try to download the Reset Windows Password utility. After the download is complete, unzip the download file and you’ll get a bootable CD image file called ResetWindowsPwd.iso.

To mount the ISO image file in VMware Workstation or Server, go to your existing Virtual Machine. Double-click on the CD-ROM drive. By default, you are probably using the physical drive. To change that and use a disk image, click on Use ISO Image and choose the ResetWindowsPwd.iso file. At this point the ISO is ready for use by the virtual machine.

Power on the virtual machine. At the VMware BIOS screen, press the ESC key to bring up the boot menu. Select to boot from CD-ROM. It will load the mini operating system and next launch the Reset Windows Password program inside the ISO image. The program automatically search and display all local user accounts on your virtual machine.

Choose the administrator account and then click on Reset Password button, it will remove your forgotten administrator password instantly. In case the administrator account is locked out or disabled, the program will also unlock/enable the account in background. Now re-configure your virtual machine to boot from virtual hard drive, you’ll be able to log in to the administrator account without being asked to enter a password.

Reset Windows Password utility could be used to reset forgotten administrator passwords of Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP. It works for both physical machines as well as virtual VMware images.