If you forget or lost your local administrator to your server, don’t panic the process below will enable you to reset your administrator’s password.
1. Boot from the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 DVD (Alternatively, you can boot with WinPE ISO)
2. From the Windows Setup menu, click “Next”.
3. Select “Repair your computer”
4. Under Choose and option, click on “Troubleshoot”.
5. Under Advanced options, click “Command Prompt”.
6. At the command prompt, run the following commands:
C:
cd windows\system32
ren Utilman.exe Utilman.exe.old
copy cmd.exe Utilman.exe
7. Close the command prompt and then click “Continue”.
Allow server to boot normally into Windows
8. At the logon screen, click the Ease of Access button in lower left of screen. This should now bring up a command window under the Local System User context (Windows Key +U)
9. At the prompt you can now change the password, by typing the following command:
net user administrator Newpassword
This will set the password for the Administrator user to be Newpassword (case sensitive).
10. Closing the command prompt, you should now be able to log back onto the server using the password you have provided in the last step.
Post steps
After you have confirmed that you can log on to the server with the Newpassword, you must reset the UTILMAN.exe.old back to Utilman.exe by follow the steps below
1. Restart your server and once again, boot from the Micrsoft Windows Server 2012 DVD
2. From the Windows Setup menu, click “Next”.
3. Select “Repair your computer”
4. Under Choose and option, click on “Troubleshoot”.
5. Under Advanced options, click “Command Prompt”.
At the command prompt, run the following commands:
c:
cd windows\system32
ren utilman.exe utilman.exe.new
copy utilman.exe.old utilman.exe
6. Close the command prompt and then click “Continue”.
7. Reboot normally. You should be able to use the Newpassword to log on and you can change it if you wish after you have logged on.
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