When you install or upgrade to Windows 8.1, you’ll be forced to create a Microsoft account or use an existing Windows Live account to log on your computer. There is no option to setup a local account during the installation. Microsoft account is now the preferred sign-in type since Windows 8. However, if you insist on using a local account, you’ve come into the right place. In this tutorial we’ll walk you through the steps to setup / install Windows 8.1 without a Microsoft account.

Tips: If you forgot your local or Microsoft account and can’t sign into Windows 8, you can bypass the password with PCUnlocker and regain access to your computer.

How to Setup Windows 8.1 without Microsoft Account?

1. Boot your computer from Windows 8.1 installation DVD or USB drive, and follow the setup wizard until you see the screen where asks for your Microsoft account to continue.

2. Enter an invalid Windows Live account or an incorrect password like shown in the following screenshot. Click on Next. You’ll get some information that indicates your email/password is not correct.

3. Simply click on the lightly-colored link that said “continue without a Microsoft Account”.
4. Now we need to press “Create a local account” button.

5. Type your local account name and password and click on “Finish”.

   Proceed to complete the left task of your installation.

I have tried everything to get into my laptop. The password I had set up will not work for some reason. Is there anyway I can bypass or recover the password? This is a newly-purchased HP 2000 laptop with Windows 8 pre-installed on it.

Forgot Windows 8 login password for your HP 2000 laptop? You can reinstall Windows and start over, but installing Windows is a time-consuming task and it may also cause data loss. So the easiest and intelligent solution is by recovering Windows 8 password. All you need is a boot media.

Step-By-Step Guide to Recover Windows 8 Password on HP 2000 Laptop

In this tutorial I am discussing about how to recover Windows 8 password with PCUnlocker Live CD. The best and easiest way of hacking into a Windows machine without data loss. Here are step-by-step instructions:

1. First of all, you need to make a PCUnlocker Live CD using an alternate PC with Internet connection. Download the ISO image of PCUnlocker and burn it to a CD using your preferred CD/DVD burning tool. If you don’t have one, ISO2Disc is a good option which allows you to make a bootable CD or USB drive from an ISO image.
2. Now you can use the CD to recover Windows 8 password on your HP 2000 laptop. To get your laptop to boot from the CD, you need to change the boot order and disable UEFI Boot option in BIOS. Insert the CD into the disc drive and turn on the computer. As soon as you see the BIOS splash screen, repeatedly press F10 to enter into BIOS Setup.
3. Navigate to the System Configuration tab, and move to the Boot Options and press Enter. You need to disable Secure Boot and enable both Legacy Support and CD-Rom Boot options from there. At the bottom of your screen, you can find the Legacy Boot Order section. Move the Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive to the top of the bootable devices. Save your changes and exit BIOS Setup.
4. This time your computer will automatically boot from the CD you’ve just burned. Just after one or two minutes, the PCUnlocker program will start and it shows you a list of local accounts for your Windows 8 installation. Choose a user account and click on Reset Password button. It will remove / unlock your forgotten password instantly. If you try to reset password for the local account associated with your Microsoft account, the program will assign a new password which could be later used to sign in your Windows 8 Microsoft account.
5. The next step is remove the CD and restart the computer. The computer will continue to boot in Legacy BIOS mode and you can revert the changes that you have made in BIOS Setup. When you come to the Windows 8 login screen, you can log on the system with a blank password for your local account, or a new password for your Microsoft account.

Conclusion

You can also follow this step-by-step guide to recover Windows 8 password on Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, or any other UEFI-based laptops or desktops. But each motherboard and/or computer manufacturer utilizes a different BIOS, you need to find the indicated key to enter into BIOS and disable UEFI boot on your own computer.

Forgot Windows 8 password for your Samsung ATIV tablet? Just set up the administrator account on a newly purchased laptop but you couldn’t remember the password now? Well, there is an easy way to remove Windows 8 password without knowing the original one. Just boot PCUnlocker Live CD on the Windows 8 PC that needed the password reset on. After you have booted into PCUnlocker, you can reset Windows 8 passwords for your local or Microsoft account easily.

How to Remove Forgotten Windows 8 Password on Samsung ATIV PC?

1) First of all, you need to make a PCUnlocker Live CD using an alternate PC with Internet connection. Download the ISO image of PCUnlocker and burn it to a CD using your preferred CD/DVD burning tool. If you don’t have one, ISO2Disc is a good option which allows you to make a bootable CD or USB drive from an ISO image.

2) Now you can use the CD to remove Windows 8 password on your Samsung ATIV computer. To get the machine to boot from the CD, you need to change the boot order and disable UEFI mode in BIOS. Insert the CD into the disc drive and turn on the computer. As soon as you see the BIOS splash screen, keep pressing the F2 key about once per second until you enter into BIOS Setup.

3) Navigate to the Boot tab, disable the Secure Boot option. If OS Mode Selection is set to UEFI OS, you need to change it to UEFI and CSM OS or CSM OS. Next enter into the Boot Device Priority option and change the boot order, So that the machine will attempt to boot from CD/DVD first, before the hard drive. Save your changes and exit BIOS Setup.

4) This time your computer will automatically boot from the CD you’ve just burned. Just after one or two minutes, the PCUnlocker program will start and it shows you a list of local accounts for your Windows 8 installation. Choose a user account and click on Reset Password button. It will remove / unlock your forgotten Windows 8 password. If you try to reset password for the local account associated with your Microsoft account, the program will assign a new password which could be later used to sign in your Windows 8 Microsoft account.

5) The next step is remove the CD and restart the computer. When you come to the Windows 8 login screen, you can log on with your local or Microsoft account.

Conclusion

Follow the steps above you should be able to remove Samsung Windows 8 password on your own. If your computer doesn’t support Legacy BIOS and it runs only under native UEFI mode, please use the Enterprise edition of PCUnlocker, which can boot both UEFI mode and Legacy mode.

Lost or forgot Windows 7 password on your Mac and don’t have a reset disk? There are many Windows password recovery tools (such as Ophcrack, Offline NT Password & Register Editor) that could be used to crack Windows 7 password on a PC, but the major issue is that they are incompatible with Mac EFI Firmware.

PCUnlocker is a recovery boot CD which can be used to remove Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP passwords on any PC and Mac. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to reset lost Windows 7 password on Mac using the PCUnlocker program.

How to Reset Windows 7 Password on Mac?

Step 1: Download the PCUnlocker program on your current computer. The downloaded file is a zip file. Decompress it and you’ll see an ISO image file named pcunlocker.iso, which contains a WinPE boot image along with the PCUnlocker application.

Step 2: Now you have to burn the ISO image to a blank CD. In Apple Mac, just open the Disk Utility (navigate to Finder > Applications > Utilities) and click on the Burn button, it allows you to burn ISO file. If your current computer is Windows machine, you can use the freeware ISO2Disc to make a bootable CD (or USB drive) from the ISO image.

Step 3: The next step is to boot your Mac from the CD you’ve burned. Just shut down your Mac, then turn it back on. When you hear the Mac startup Chime, press and hold the Option/Alt key. You’ll be shown all the bootable drives on your Mac, including the CD drive. Use the arrow key to choose the CD-ROM and press the Enter key.

Step 4: Your Mac will load the Windows PE OS from the CD. Once the PCUnlocker launches, you could see a list of local accounts that are found in your Windows 7 SAM registry file. Just choose your desired account and click on Reset Password button. The program will reset your forgotten Windows 7 user password instantly.

Step 5: Click on Restart button and remove the CD. Now you can boot your Mac into Windows 7 successfully without being asking for a password! Enjoy it!

After installing or upgrading to Windows 8 / 8.1, you might find that the built-in Administrator account is unable to run any Modern UI Apps. If you try to run the Modern app such as Calendar, Photos or Internet Explorer, you’ll get this error message: “This app can’t be opened using the Built-in Administrator account please sign in with a different account and try again.” or “This app can’t be activated by the Built-in Administrator”.

Windows 8 Modern App requires that the UAC (User Account Control) be enabled. If you’ve disabled UAC on your computer, you need to turn on UAC again. Here are additional steps to fix this problem:

1. Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run box, and then type secpol.msc. Press Enter.
2. On the Local Security Policy window, navigate to Security Settings –> Local Policies –> Security Options.

3. On the right panel, double-click on the option “User Account Control: Admin Approval mode for the Built-in Administrators Account” and enable it.

4. Click on Apply and exit Local Security Policy.
5. Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run box, and then type regedit. Press Enter.
6. On the Registry Editor window, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\UIPI. On the right side, double-click on default and change the value to “0×00000001(1)”. Click OK.

7. Restart your computer. Now you should be able to run Modern UI Apps using the Built-in Administrator account.

Note: If you are unable to log on Windows 8 / 8.1 as the built-in administrator account, you can enable the built-in administrator account to log on Windows easily.

How to access the computer after you disable the administrator account? Be aware that disabling the built-in administrator account means that it is important that you do not forgot the user name and passwords for the other administrator accounts on that PC. If you do, you may end up a in a situation where you are unable to make any admin changes to your PC — or even be unable to login at all.

In Windows XP, you can still log into the disabled built-in administrator account if you rebooted the computer into Safe Mode. However this behavior has change since Windows Vista and now you are no longer able to log on to Windows Safe Mode with a disabled administrator account. What to do if you can’t get into Safe Mode as well?

PCUnlocker is a bootable media that allows you to re-enable the disabled local administrator account without entering into Windows. To get started, you need to use an alternate PC to install PCUnlocker on a CD. Boot your locked computer to CD and once running you can enable (and clear the password of) the local administrator account easily!

Follow the simple steps below and you can enable built-in administrator account to log on any Windows computer, including Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP:

Step 1: Make A PCUnlocker Live CD

Click here to download and save the PCUnlocker self-extracting Zip file to a folder on your hard drive, then extract the ISO image file: pcunlocker.iso from it. Burn this ISO image to a CD (or USB drive) using the freeware ISO2Disc, ImgBurn or Rufus.

Step 2: Boot from CD

Put the PCUnlocker Live CD in the CD drive of your locked computer. In order to boot into CD, you need to set the CD drive as the first boot priority from BIOS.

With the EFI/UEFI-based computer you might also need to disable the Secure Boot option and change BIOS mode from UEFI to Legacy / CSM, by following this article:

How to Set PC to Boot with Legacy BIOS Mode Instead of UEFI Mode.

Step 3: Enable the Disabled Local Administrator Account

Once booting to the CD, Windows PE operating system will load and give you access to the PCUnlocker program. This program automatically searches the SAM database for your Windows installation, and then displays all your local accounts.

Choose a disabled local administrator account, and click on “Reset Password” button. It will re-enable your account and remove the existing password for your local administrator account. Now eject the CD and restart your computer. You can then log on to Windows using your previous disabled local administrator account without a password!

Today when I try to set up a Picture Password on Windows 8.1, a big black rectangle appears on the left border of my screen. Inside the rectangle there is a big orange arrow and the words “Switch between apps. Swipe in from the edge to go back to the last app you were using.” The annoying thing is that it overlays part of the screen and I can’t get rid of it.

After searching online I found this is the Help Sticker Notifications. Luckily there is a simple registry hack to disable the Help Sticker Notifications in Windows 8.1.

How to Disable Help Sticker Notifications in Windows 8.1?

1. Press the Windows + R keyboard shortcut to bring up the Run box.
2. Type regedit and press Enter afterwards.
3. In the Registry Editor window, navigate to the subkey: HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows.
4. Right-click on Windows key and select New > Key from the context menu.
5. Name the new key EdgeUI.
6. Right-click the new EdgeUI key afterwards and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
7. Name it DisableHelpSticker.
8. Double-click on DisableHelpSticker and enter 1 in the Value data box. Click OK.

Restart your PC and the Help Sticker Notifications will disappear in Windows 8.1. Nevertheless, if you feel the need to get it back, you can do so by navigating back to the EdgeUI key and delete it from the registry. This will enable the help sticker again.

I forgot my windows 8 login password but can access PC as I remember the PIN. I am using a local account so please tell me how can I change or reset my password?

Windows 8 allows you to use a four digit PIN or Picture password to quickly log on your computer. But after switching to PIN or Picture password, you might tend to forget the traditional text-based password later. The problem is that without text password you are unable to change or reset your password from the PC Settings app and Control Panel.

Luckily there’s an easy workaround for that. Simply open an elevated Command Prompt and you can reset forgotten Windows 8 login password using your PIN or Picture password. Let’s proceed.

1. Press the keyboard shortcut Windows + X to access the Windows Tools Menu. Choose “Command Prompt (Admin)”.
2. Run the net user command and you can change or reset your Windows 8 login password easily:
   net user administrator 123
   Replace 123 with your preferred password.
3. After resetting your local account password, you can then use it to remove or change your PIN or Picture password.

However, if you’re using a Microsoft account and forgot your password, you will need to reset your password online from Microsoft website. If this also doesn’t help,  try to use the PCUnlocker program which can bypass Windows 8 Microsoft account with a CD or USB drive.

In the previous post I explained how to skip the Start screen in Windows 8, by creating a scheduled task. Things get easier since Windows 8.1 and you can now bypass the Start screen with just a few clicks.

The Start screen is a good starting point for Windows 8 devices with touch screens. But the majority of desktop users would prefer to bypass the Start screen and boot directly to the desktop. There is a really simple way to do this.

How to Bypass Windows 8.1 Start Screen?

1. Right-click on the Windows 8.1 taskbar, and then choose Properties.

2. Click on the Navigation tab, then under the Start screen section, check the box next to “When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start“. Click OK.

3. Now when you fire up your PC you will be taken straight to the desktop without ever seeing the Start screen. However, you can always access the Start Screen any time by press the Windows key.

Forgot Windows 8 password to the only account on your Lenovo IdeaPad laptop? You might find that a lot of bootable recovery utilities won’t work because of UEFI BIOS, including BartPE. In this tutorial I’ll walk you through the steps of using PCUnlocker Live CD to bypass Windows 8 password on Lenovo IdeaPad.

How to Bypass Windows 8 Password on Lenovo IdeaPad with UEFI BIOS?

1. First of all, use another computer to download the PCUnlocker program, which comes as a self-extracting .zip file. After the file has downloaded, extract the pcunlocker.iso file from it. Burn the ISO image to a blank CD using your preferred CD burning program such as ISO2Disc.
2. Put your newly created CD in the CD drive of your Lenovo IdeaPad laptop and powering it up. When the Lenovo logo appears, immediately press Fn + F2 to enter the BIOS setup utility. You can also enter into BIOS by pressing the Novo button when your laptop is powered off, and then select BIOS Setup.

3. In the BIOS Setup, select the Security tab and change Secure Boot value to Disabled.

4. Next, on the Boot tab, change the Boot Mode from UEFI to Legacy Support.

   Press Fn + F10 to save the change and exit BIOS. But the laptop will go straight to booting again, so you’ll need to shutdown or power it off.

5. Turn on the computer again. Press Fn + F12 to access the Boot menu, or press the Novo button and select Boot Menu. On the boot menu screen, select your CD drive and press Enter.
6. After booting the laptop from the CD, it loads the Windows PE operating system and finally opens up the PCUnlocker program. The program automatically detects the operating system installed on your hard drive, and then displays a list of Windows 8 local user accounts.

7. Choose one of your administrator accounts and click on Reset Password button. The program will unlock your selected account and reset the password immediately. Eject the CD and restart your computer. Enter into BIOS Setup and change the BIOS Mode back to UEFI.
8. Now you’ve successfully bypassed Windows 8 Password on Lenovo IdeaPad with UEFI BIOS, and you can log back into Windows 8 without a password! Enjoy it!

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a standard firmware interface for PCs, designed to replace legacy BIOS (basic input/output system). Many new computers are shipping with UEFI firmware instead of standard BIOS. Most of UEFI-based computers come with 64-bit UEFI but there are also some Windows 8 tablets that use 32-bit UEFI, such as Dell Venue 8/11 Pro, Toshiba Encore, Acer Iconia W3/W4, Lenovo MIIX 2, Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 and ASUS VivoBook.

However, there is a limitation on installing Windows on devices with UEFI firmware. A 32-bit UEFI firmware core must be used to install a 32-bit OS and likewise 64-bit UEFI for a 64-bit OS. It is possible to have support for both 32-bit and 64-bit UEFI in one BIOS, but it requires additional work and ROM space, so this may not be commonly implemented.

If you forgot Windows administrator password for a UEFI-based computer, you can reset it easily with PCUnlocker. Just make a PCUnlocker Live CD and you can then use it to reset lost Windows password on any computer with EFI/UEFI/BIOS firmware. If your computer doesn’t have an optical drive, you can use the freeware ISO2Disc to make a GPT bootable USB drive from PCUnlocker ISO image.

PCUnlocker is available in two version (UEFI 64-bit version and UEFI 32-bit version). You can purchase the full version or try the trial version before deciding on making a purchase.

Download PCUnlocker with 64-bit UEFI Support

Download PCUnlocker with 32-bit UEFI Support

Forgot Windows 8.1 password of your Toshiba Encore tablet? Need to recover or reset it? The easiest solution is using PCUnlocker. It enables you to reset forgotten Windows 8.1 password on any UEFI based devices, including Toshiba Encore tablet.

PCUnlocker Overview

PCUnlocker is a tool to use when you forgot/lost your Windows account password. Just boot your locked computer from PCUnlocker boot media and it allows you to reset and replace the password of any Windows account. The boot media can boot in 32-bit UEFI, 64-bit UEFI and legacy BIOS mode.

Prepare A Bootable Media

PCUnlocker runs from a WinPE boot disc, so you need to download and burn ISO onto a USB drive before you can use it. So download the PCUnlocker disc image and burn it to a disc using the freeware ISO2Disc. Remember to choose the GPT partition because Toshiba Encore tablet comes with 32-bit UEFI firmware instead of standard BIOS.

Reset Toshiba Encore Windows 8.1 Password

Once you have created the bootable media, you need to boot off it. So connect the USB-OTG cable to your Toshiba Encore tablet and plug in the bootable media.

When turn on the tablet, press and hold the power button together with Vol+ button at the same time until the device turns on and the boot device selection menu appears.

Select the USB Memory device and press Enter. The tablet will boot off the USB drive. Once you’ve booted into the USB drive, you’ll see the PCUnlocker program in minutes. The program automatically searches the Windows SAM database and lists your Windows 8.1 user accounts.

Select a local account and click on Reset Password button. It will reset / unlock your password quickly. If you’re using a Microsoft account with your Toshiba Encore tablet, there should be a local account associated with your Microsoft account. Choose that account and reset the password. Meanwhile, the program will also unlock your Microsoft account password.

The last step is to remove the USB drive and reboot your Toshiba Encore tablet. You should now be able to login to your Windows 8.1 account.

UEFI was introduced with Windows 8 as a replacement to the BIOS system. In order to benefit from the new UEFI features, here I’ll show you how to install Windows 8 with UEFI in VMware Workstation.

Requirements:

• UEFI requires 64-bit versions of Windows operating systems, so you need to prepare a Windows 8 64-bit ISO image.
• VMware Workstation 8, 9 or 10.

Install Windows 8 with UEFI in VMware Workstation

1. Start VMware Workstation. Choose File > New > Virtual Machine to begin creating a new virtual machine.
2. Follow the step-by-step wizard to configure your virtual machine.
3. Before starting your virtual machine, open the .VMX file of your virtual machine in Notepad and add the following line to it:
   firmware="efi"

4. Save the .VMX file. Now start your virtual machine and boot it from Windows 8 64-bit ISO image.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to install Windows 8.

After Windows 8 installation is complete, you’ll find the virtual hard drive is partitioned with GPT instead of MBR partition table. You’re also unable to boot a UEFI-based virtual machine from a 32-bit Windows 8 ISO image.

Forgot Windows 8 password to your ASUS VivoBook? How to bypass Windows login password without resetting your laptop to factory settings? ASUS VivoBook comes with UEFI which will prevent you from booting any boot media without UEFI bootloader. In this article I’ll show you how to enable Legacy/CSM boot support in ASUS VivoBook and then unlock your forgotten Windows 8 password with a USB drive.

How to Unlock ASUS VivoBook Windows 8 Password?

First of all, you need to make a USB boot media using an alternate PC. Download the PCUnlocker program and save it to your desktop. The downloaded file is a self-extracting .zip file which contains a WinPE ISO image (pcunlocker.iso). Extract the ISO image and burn it to a USB flash drive using ISO2Disc or Rufus program.

Plug the USB boot media in your ASUS VivoBook. Power on the machine and press F2 key to enter the BIOS Setup. To enable legacy/CSM boot support, enable “Launch CSM” under the Boot tab.

Switch to the Security tab and set “Secure Boot Control” to Disabled. Press F10 to save your changes and exit BIOS.

When the laptop restarts, press ESC key to launch the boot menu. When you get the boot options, choose the USB drive as we want to reset Windows 8 password offline. After a while, the PCUnlocker program will launch and it displays all your Windows 8 user accounts.

Choose a user account and click on “Reset Password” button, it will unlock / reset your forgotten password instantly. Last but not least, disconnect your USB drive and restart your computer. Enter into the BIOS setup again and disable the “Launch CSM” option which you enabled in the step above. You can then sign into Windows 8 without a password! This is how can you unlock ASUS VivoBook easily!

If your Windows 8 tablet has been infected by a virus or has become slow to the point of being unusable, resetting the tablet to factory settings may be the best and quickest solution. Luckily, Windows 8 has built-in tool to reset your tablet to its original state. In this article I’ll show you 2 options to reset Windows 8 tablet to factory settings.

WARNING: All your documents, pictures, settings, accounts and any other data on your Windows 8 tablet will be deleted while performing factory reset.

Method 1: Reset from within Windows:

1. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Settings. If you’re using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, click Settings.
2. Tap or click Change PC settings.
3. Tap or click Update and recovery, and then tap or click Recovery.
4. Under Remove everything and reinstall Windows, tap or click Get started.

Method 2: Reset from Windows 8 Login Screen

If you’ve lost your password, you may not have to reset your tablet. See unlock Windows 8 password before performing these reset steps:

1. From the Windows sign-in screen, tap or click the Power icon in the lower right corner of the sign-in screen.
2. Press and hold the Shift key. (If you’re using the on-screen keyboard, tap or click the Shift key.)
3. While the Shift key is still pressed, tap or click Restart. After the tablet restarts, the Choose an option screen will display.
4. Tap or click Troubleshoot.
5. Tap or click Reset your PC.

If you don’t have a keyboard connected to Windows 8 tablet, you’ll need to use the on-screen keyboard to do these reset steps. From the Windows 8 sign-in screen, tap or click the Ease of access icon in the lower-left corner of the screen, and then tap or click On-Screen Keyboard.

Forgot Windows 8 login password on your ThinkPad Helix tablet? How to obtain admin access to your tablet without restoring it to factory settings? ThinkPad Helix is preloaded with UEFI firmware instead of traditional BIOS. Legacy-based boot media will not boot successfully on UEFI based computer. So here I’m going to show you how to create UEFI bootable USB media and then use it to reset forgotten Windows 8 password on ThinkPad Helix tablet.

Part 1: Create A UEFI Bootable USB Media

1. Before resetting ThinkPad Helix tablet password, you need to use another computer to make a bootable PCUnlocker USB drive. Simply download the trial version of PCUnlocker Enterprise, unzip the downloaded file and you’ll get an ISO image file called pcunlocker.iso.
2. Next download and install the freeware ISO2Disc. Run the ISO2Disc program, click on Browse button to select the PCUnlocker ISO image, then choose your USB drive and select GPT partition style. Click on Burn.

3. A UEFI bootable USB media will be created in minutes.

Part 2: Reset Windows 8 Password on ThinkPad Helix Tablet

1. Insert the USB boot media into your ThinkPad Helix tablet.
2. Turn on the tablet. While the “To interrupt normal startup, press Enter or tap here” message is displayed at the logo screen, press the F12 key or tap the message string to launch the Startup Interrupt Menu, then tap F12 to enter the startup selection menu.

3. Select to boot from USB drive. The tablet will then boot from USB media. After a while, you’ll see the PCUnlocker program and it shows you a list of local accounts existing on your ThinkPad Helix tablet.

4. Choose a local account and then click Reset Password button, it will reset your forgotten password immediately. If you’re using a Microsoft Account with your ThinkPad Helix tablet, choose the local account associated to your Microsoft account and then reset its password.

If the touchscreen doesn’t respond correctly, you’ll need to install the tablet into the keyboard dock or attach an external keyboard to the tablet. Using the keyboard to perform the password recovery steps conveniently.

Locked out of Lenovo Miix tablet because your Windows 8 admin password is lost? How can you change or reset it without needing to reinstall it? The tablet is locked and you can not go thorough it. Hence you can not install any software to unlock it. As you already know you can just reset your tablet to factory. I think you don’t want to lost all your data for a simple password. Then you should realize we need to do something before Windows boot up the system. Most of these methods use a Live CD to crack the password.

Both Lenovo Miix 2 and IdeaTab Miix10 are using pure UEFI (32-bit) instead of traditional BIOS. Miix tablet only supports UEFI boot, does not support legacy boot. To reset the password you have to use a Windows password recovery tool that supports UEFI booting. PCUnlocker Enterprise is the right one that you’re looking for. In this tutorial I’ll show you how to use it to reset your forgotten Windows 8 password on Lenovo Miix tablet.

How to Unlock Lenovo Miix Tablet If You Forgot Windows 8 Password?

Use an alternate PC to download the bootable ISO image of PCUnlocker Enterprise and extract it. Burn the pcunlocker.iso file to your USB flash drive with the freeware ISO2Disc. Remember that you choose the GPT partition style. This will create a PCUnlocker Live USB drive with UEFI bootloader.

Plug the USB drive into your Lenovo Miix tablet. When the tablet is off, press and hold the volume up button and then press the Power button, until the Novo Button Menu appears on the screen. Choose the Boot Menu option, and then select your USB flash drive and press Enter.

Once it boots to the PCUnlocker program, select your Windows account and click on Reset Password button to remove your forgotten password. If you use a Microsoft account as your tablet login, there should be a local account that is linked to your Microsoft account. Choose that local account to proceed and this will also unlock your Microsoft account password locally.

Restart your tablet and remove the USB drive. You can then log back into your Lenovo Miix Windows 8 tablet without a password! This method works with all Windows 8 tablets of Lenovo Miix series.

If you have kids you may don’t want them to run certain applications like Skype or BitTorrent on your computer. Today we take a look at a setting in Local Group Policy that allows you to prevent specified programs from ever running in Windows. This is also useful if you don’t want other people to open applications on your work computer.

How to Prevent A Program from Ever Running in Windows?

1. The first thing you must do is open the Local Group Policy Editor. You won’t find a menu entry for this tool. Instead you start the tool by pressing Windows + R to bring up the Run box and then entering the command gpedit.msc.

2. Navigate to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System in the left panel, and double click on Don’t run specified Windows applications.

3. In the pop up window, first set it to Enabled, then under the Options section click on the Show button next to List of disallowed applications.

4. A Show Contents dialog comes up where you can type in the apps you want to block users from running. In the Value column, type the application executable name (don’t use the full path), e.g. firefox.exe, notepad.exe.

5. The change takes effect immediate right after you click OK or Apply. From this point on, if a user tries to access an application that is not on the specified list they will get the following warning message.

This is a nice feature for preventing unwanted programs from running in Windows. However, Local Group Policy Editor is not available in Home versions of Windows 7 or 8. This trick only prevents users from accessing applications that are started by Windows Explorer process, but you can still run the disallowed programs in the Command Prompt. If you need a reliable and more secure solution, I would recommend you to use the professional privacy protection program – Protect My Folders.

Lost Windows 8 admin password to your Toshiba Satellite laptop? You can use some bootable utilities like BartPE to reset your lost Windows password, but such disks are Windows XP based operating systems which can be used to unlock only Windows 7, Vista and XP (not including Windows 8 and 8.1).

The reason behind this is, most of Windows 8/8.1 laptop is configured in UEFI mode (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). The UEFI mode does not allow to boot legacy OS like Windows XP, DOS etc. So to reset Windows 8/8.1 password, the conventional method does not work.

Luckily, the latest version of PCUnlocker came out that can boot in UEFI mode. This article will introduce how to make a PCUnlocker Live USB and then use it to bypass Windows 8/8.1 password on Toshiba Satellite laptop.

Create A PCUnlocker Live USB

If you can’t boot into your Toshiba Satellite Laptop, you’ll need to borrow one from a friend to make your own PCUnlocker Live USB drive, but other than that, all you really need is a USB flash drive. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Download the PCUnlocker Enterprise and save it on your spare computer. Please note both the Standard and Pro editions don’t support UEFI booting. The downloaded file is a self-extracting .zip file which contains a UEFI bootable ISO image: pcunlocker.iso. Extract the ISO image file from it.
2. Burn the ISO image file to your USB flash drive using the freeware ISO2Disc or Rufus. Make sure you choose the “GPT” or “GPT partition scheme for UEFI computer” option while burning the USB drive. If you don’t have a USB drive at hand, you can use a blank CD to make a PCUnlocker Live disc.

3. Once your USB drive has finished burning, insert it into your Toshiba Satellite laptop.

Bypass Toshiba Satellite Windows 8/8.1 Laptop Password

Now that you’ve successfully created a PCUnlocker Live USB drive. It’s time to boot into the USB drive and bypass Windows 8/8.1 password. Here is what you need to do:

1. Turn on your Toshiba Satellite laptop. As soon as the Toshiba logo appears, press F12 to get into Boot Menu. Using the arrow keys to select the DVD option and press Enter. In some Toshiba notebooks or laptops, in order to access the Boot Menu you might need to press the ESC key or the “C” key as you boot.
2. Once you’ve booted into the PCUnlocker Live USB, you’ll be presented with the screen of PCUnlocker. This program automatically locates the SAM database file for your installed Windows operating system, and shows you a list of local user accounts.

3. Choose your administrator account and click on “Reset Password” button. The program will remove your forgotten Windows 8/8.1 password quickly! If you’re using a Microsoft account as your computer’s login, make sure you choose the associated local account and the program will unlock your Microsoft account password locally.
4. When it’s done, reboot your system and you can log back into your Windows 8/8.1 account. Besides bypassing Windows 8 password, you can also use PCUnlocker Live USB drive to reset Windows 7, Vista and XP passwords on your Toshiba Satellite laptops.

Can’t log into your Panasonic Toughpad Windows 8 tablet because you’ve forgotten the password? All your need is to create a PCUnlocker bootable USB drive with UEFI support, then boot your Panasonic Toughpad tablet from USB and it enables you to reset lost Windows 8 password quickly! This method works with Toughpad FZ-G1, Toughpad FZ-M1 and Toughpad 4K tablets.

How to Reset Forgotten Panasonic Toughpad Windows 8 Tablet Password?

1. Download the PCUnlocker Enterprise and save it on an alternate PC. Extract the pcunlocker.iso file from the downloaded .zip archive.
2. Burn the ISO image file to your USB flash drive using the freeware ISO2Disc or Rufus. Make sure you choose the “GPT” or “GPT partition scheme for UEFI computer” option while burning the USB drive.

3. Once your USB drive has finished burning, insert it into the USB port of your Panasonic Toughpad tablet.
4. Turn on the tablet while touching top left of the screen to enter the BIOS Setup Utility.
5. Touch [Exit], then double-touch your USB drive in [Boot Override]. Double-touch [Yes], the computer will restart and then boot from your USB drive.
6. The computer temporarily loads the Windows 8 PE OS from the USB drive. When it’s done, the PCUnlocker application will start and display a list of Windows 8 accounts detected from your Windows 8 SAM registry hive.

7. Select your administrator account and click on “Reset Password” button. It will reset your forgotten Windows 8 tablet password quickly! Restart the computer and you can then log into your Panasonic Toughpad Windows 8 tablet without a password!