Table of Contents
Enable local administrator account in Windows
This will work in Windows 8.1 or Windows 10.
Boot into WinPE environment and type diskpart, list disk, select disk and list volume to get the letter of the system drive. Exit diskpart then type C: or, if the system drive is given another letter, type that instead.
cd c:\windows\system32
ren utilman.exe utilman.exe.bak
ren cmd.exe utilman.exe
Restart into the Windows operating system and press Ctrl-Alt-Del. Click on the icon voice assistant to get CMD window open and then reset the password or enable the local administrator account.
Reset an existing user's password
Type net user to see a list of available user accounts.
Type net user $USERNAME * (replacing $USERNAME with the desired username), and follow the prompts to set the password for that local user.
Activate the local administrator account
Type net user administrator /active:yes to activate the local Administrator account.
Type net user administrator * and follow the prompts to set the password for the local Administrator.
If successful, reboot in the WinPE environment to restore the name of the executables.