I know how it sounds - but hear me out. My grandmother needs to access her laptop - but can't. We think she might be going senile, and she can't remember her password. Thus, I was given the task of Wiping the computer and creating a new user account for her. I figured that it'd be possible, and I've looked at quite a few links - but it seems like it won't be possible. It appears that I need to make an ISO file but I need a Windows 7 key to do that, and unfortunately I think thats been lost to the ages. Do I need to buy a new Win7 license to fix this - or is there a way around it?
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It is possible to do this using an Ubuntu LiveCD. You can download a copy of this and put it on a bootable USB, and then boot from it using your grandmother's computer.
From there, when you have booted, select "Try Ubuntu" and open Synaptic Package Manager. Go to Settings -> Repositories and enable the "universe" repository. Then, close Synaptic and run these commands from Terminal:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install chntpw
When chntpw has finished installing, you need to manually mount your Windows drive. Do this using:
mount /dev/sdaX /mnt
Where X is the number that is your Windows partition; you can check this using a partition editor like GParted on your LiveCD.
Once you do that, change the directory to your Windows config directory.
cd /mnt/Windows/System32/config
Change that command according to case, as Terminal is case-sensitive. Once you do that, you can run the command below to clear the password or change it, depending on your preference. Chntpw will prompt you about this when you run it.
sudo chntpw -u <username> SAM
Then reboot once the command completes, and the password should have been changed or cleared, depending on your decision.