Steps to Reset Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard using Linux

Posted on 15-May-2020 by krylon

These are the steps taken from my notes to reset/change an administrator password on a Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard install. I used Ubuntu and chntpw and the Windows partition was not encrypted.

  1. Boot from Ubuntu live disk
  2. Switch to root 
    sudo -i
  3. Add the repository that has chntpw 
    apt-add-repository universe
  4. Install chntpw 
    apt-get install chntpw
  5. Make a folder to mount the Windows partition drive 
    mkdir /winmount
  6. Mount the partition (search available partitions using Gparted) 
    mount /dev/xxx /winmount
  7. List all users 
    chntpw -l /winmount/WINDOWS/system32/config/SAM
  8. Modify the desired user
    chntpw -u username /winmount/WINDOWS/system32/config/SAM
  9. Clear (blank) the password of the user, option 1.  Then unlock if necessary, option 2.
  10. Quit and write the changes
  11. Unmount and reboot 
    unmount /winmount
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