Reset admin password via utilman.exe, file not preset

I am attempting to come up with a procedure to reset the local admin password on Windows 11. This id a Windows 11 VM running in
vCenter 8.x. When I finally get the machine booted to a repair sequence I choose command prompt. I have to CD .. to actually see the windows
directory. If I drill down into c:\windows\system32\ if I search for utilman.exe it is not there. Where is it? If I reboot normally and login I can find
utilman.exe. I read I may have to disable Early Launch Malware Protection? If so, how.

...Ar

Try looking in D: or E:.

Ben

araczek said:

When I finally get the machine booted to a repair sequence I choose command prompt

Click to expand...

Booting to other OSes, such as a repair environment, entails that environment discovering each disk and assigning its drive letter.
A repair environment is not necessarily going to assign the same drive letters as your installed Windows.
That's why your first action in the repair environment needs to be to identify each disk.
- I enter Notepad in the command prompt then use its File, Open dialog to browse around to identify disks.
- The drive letter you need for your installed Windows disk will never be X:\ [that's the virtual drive in which the repair environment runs].


Denis

In this guide, i present a straightforward method for resetting Windows local user accounts password using Hiren's BootCD PE (Preinstallation Environment).