Scenario: a laptop with 2 partitions: a Linux one and a Windows XP one.
Problem: you completely forgot the Windows password for your user but you definitely need ( shame, I know 
) to run it.
Solution: chntpw
Yeah, it’s a smart Linux application to reset your Windows password.
If you have a Debian-based distribution, you can simply install it through this:
apt-get install chntpw
So you can run it in your Linux partition or you could acquire a live distribution (e.g. Knoppix) and launch the program in there.
The command to use is similar to this:
chntpw -u my_user /media/sda1/WINDOWS/system32/config/SAM
Be careful. It seems not able to change the password but just to reset it (you must insert an * while prompting for the new password).
