Hacking windows password is very simple. It just takes a little bit of time. But with the proper tools, you can crack it in max 5 mins..

For this to work, you need to have physical access to the computer you are trying to hack into.

Once you get this access the password can be hacked in 2 ways

  1. Using OPHCRACK live cd.
  • First off goto http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/ and click on Download ophcrack Live CD.
  • Download the correct version of the ISO. If you want to crack Win XP password get “ophcrack XP live CD”, If you want to crack Windows Vista/ Windows 7 get the “ophcrack vista live cd”.
  • Next you have to burn the ISO onto a CD.I recomend using Free easy CD burner from http://download.cnet.com/Free-Easy-CD-DVD-Burner/3000-2646_4-10627009.html. Its fast and efficient.
  • Next, goto the computer you want to crack and pop in the live cd. In the Boot Menu, select the CD option and boot the CD.
  • Now after it loads, it will crack the password and display it to you.

Ophcrack is a very good password cracking software, but if the password is very long or complicated, then it will not be able to crack it.Ophcrack uses rainbow tables (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_table )  to crack the passwords. So it is much better than normal brute force

2.Using Cracker such as Cain and Abel. – I personally like this method a lot…

From the computer you want to crack into, you need to get 2 files – The Sam file and The System File. No rebooting and all that.. This is very convenient if you want to hack your friends comp or something :p.

The SAM and SYSTEM file is located in “C:\windows\system32\config”. The problem is that these files are locked and hence cannot be copied.

If you want to crack a Win XP password , then you are in luck as windows also stores the backup of SAM and SYSTEM in

” C:\windows\repair “. So you can copy these files from there…

But if you want to crack  Win Vista/7 password, you have to boot into the computer from the live cd of another OS such as ubuntu, and then copy the SAM and SYSTEM from “C:\windows\system32\config”.

Once you get these files, cracking is very easy.

  • Download Cain and abel from http://www.oxid.it/cain.html.
  • Install it and then run it. Ignore any warnings which come up..
  • Click on the cracker tab on the top. Next click on the BLUE PLUS mark  to add the hashes from SAM and SYSTEM.
  • Click on import hashes from SAM database.
  • For sam filename, click on browse and select the SAM file you have got from the computer you want to crack
  • For the boot key (HEX) select the system file.
  • Now, if all went well, you should be able to see all the users in the SAM database.
  • You can right-click on any username and crack its password.


You can select the right type of cracking by seeing the type in the table (LM or NTLM or both)..

Dictionary attack will try all words from a given wordlist.  Wordlists are plenty and can be searched on Google.

Brute force attack is just crazy , unless the password is very lame..

Cryptanalysis attack is very good and the best type of attack. For this , you will need to download the rainbow tables. Check on google for the rainbow tables. It’s a pretty big file to download. After it completes you can use the cryptanalysis attack with the rainbow tables. There are different rainbow tables available for windows XP and Windows Vista/7. So depending on the OS you want to crack download the correct version. Cheers!