The biggest reason you might want to change another user's password is if the other user has forgotten theirs. It happens to the best of us so try not to make your family member, roommate, or other partner on your computer feel too badly about it.
There are plenty of ways to get around a lost Windows password but one of the easier ones, assuming of course that there's more than one user on the computer, is to just change the password from within another account.
You'll be happy to know that changing the password on another user's account is really easy, no matter which version of Windows you have.
The specific steps involved to change another user's password differ somewhat depending on which operating system you're using:
- How To Change Another User's Password in Windows 7
- How To Change Another User's Password in Windows Vista
- How To Change Another User's Password in Windows XP
Warning: When you change a Windows password from outside the account, which is what you're doing when you change another user's password, the user you're changing the password for will lose all access to EFS encrypted files, personal certificates, and any stored passwords like those for network resources and website passwords. Most users don't have EFS encrypted files and the loss of stored passwords probably isn't a big deal but I wanted you to know the consequence of resetting a password in this way.
Important: Your Windows account must be configured as an administrator if you want to change another user's password. If not, you may need to use a free Windows password recovery program to change the password instead. You should also see Ways To Find Lost Windows Passwords for some more ideas.
