reset password - "irreversible loss of information" ??

bsammon · May 1, 2025

If I (using an administrator-enabled account) try to reset another user's password in "Computer Management", I get a dialog box with dire warnings that "Resetting this password might cause irreversible loss of information"

Does anyone know what kind of information loss this is referring to? Does it wipe their entire user profile? Just any stuff related to a Microsoft account? Something else?

Also, is this information loss intrinsic to changing a password, or dependent on what tool I use to change the password? I.E. can I get around this by using the "net" command to change the password, or some more hacker-ish method? (regedit?)

In this scenario:

I don't know their password/pin
I don't have answers to "security questions"
I don't have a password recovery disk
This is Windows Professional, but there is no Active-Directory domain.

glasskuter · May 1, 2025

Welcome to the forum.

What you are attempting to do is basically breaking into their account so , IMO, I can't believe you can change their password at all, But, yes, if you can, I would expect everything for this user would be deleted. It's a matter of security.

You can delete their account, though.

Scannerman · May 1, 2025

bsammon said:
If I (using an administrator-enabled account) try to reset another user's password in "Computer Management", I get a dialog box with dire warnings that "Resetting this password might cause irreversible loss of information"

Does anyone know what kind of information loss this is referring to? Does it wipe their entire user profile? Just any stuff related to a Microsoft account? Something else?

Also, is this information loss intrinsic to changing a password, or dependent on what tool I use to change the password? I.E. can I get around this by using the "net" command to change the password, or some more hacker-ish method? (regedit?)

In this scenario:

I don't know their password/pin

I don't have answers to "security questions"

I don't have a password recovery disk

This is Windows Professional, but there is no Active-Directory domain.

I'm curious as to what you are attempting to do that would involve resetting the log in. Are you attempting to access the data on that particular drive? Does the data on the drive have any importance that it cannot be deleted? Would you prefer to simply factory reset the entire drive?

hsehestedt · May 1, 2025

I'm not going to go into detail, because, to be honest, this whole line of questioning sounds sus to me, but I will simply say that if you are an Admin on the machine, you have access to ALL data on that machine, even that of other users.

pseymour · May 1, 2025

If you click the Proceed button on that first dialog box, the password reset dialog tells you what will be lost.

View attachment 132735

Bree · May 1, 2025

bsammon said:
If I (using an administrator-enabled account) try to reset another user's password in "Computer Management", I get a dialog box with dire warnings that "Resetting this password might cause irreversible loss of information"

Does anyone know what kind of information loss this is referring to? Does it wipe their entire user profile? Just any stuff related to a Microsoft account? Something else?

That dialog has three buttons, Proceed, Cancel, and Help. Clicking help takes you to a MS web page where, after following a few links, you'll find this explanation.

Microsoft said:
Additional considerations

To perform this procedure, you must provide credentials for the Administrator account on the local computer (if you are prompted), or you must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer.

Strong passwords improve computer and network security.

Resetting a local account password for a user may result in some data loss for that user if the user has encrypted data or alternate Internet passwords.

Reset the password for a local user account

learn.microsoft.com

So it's a warning that if the user has encrypted data they may loose access to it after you reset their password.

Bree · May 1, 2025

MS don't bother to warn you if you use Netplwiz :ROFLMAO:

Scannerman · May 2, 2025

I'm still curious and I still have a lot of questions. The reason for the questions is so that I know which areas to focus on to better assist the OP. There's no point in focusing on the various ways to save the data if the OP doesn't value the data. There's no point in doing a factory reset if a factory reset doesn't fix the issue. If the physical drive itself is in question perhaps a fresh drive is in order. Sometimes a new OS is desired and sometimes the personal data is valued enough to be moved to the OS. All options are possible in most cases. Encrypted data can present problems but there are ways to do this.

bsammon · May 7, 2025

This is currently just a hypothetical-but-forseeable situation, so just curiosity-driven at the moment.

The scenario: I'm a sysadmin/IT guy for a very small company, and a user comes to me and says "I forgot my password/can't log in. Help". I'd have access to another account with administrator privileges.

I realize there's a related discussion to be had about precautions we could take in advance, but in this discussion I'm just curious what the situation would be if we didn't take any precautions.

bsammon · May 7, 2025

pseymour said:
If you click the Proceed button on that first dialog box, the password reset dialog tells you what will be lost.

View attachment 132735

Aha! I had a fuzzy recollection of having seen a more detailed explanation in the past, and I think this was it.

Also, a wild guess here, but I'm guessing that the "stored passwords are deleted" thing only applies to Microsoft browsers, and not Firefox/Chrom{e|ium}

bsammon · May 7, 2025

Bree said:
MS don't bother to warn you if you use Netplwiz

Yes, exactly! And I suspect there's not much of a warning if you use the "net" command. But it's not clear whether lack-of-warning means lack-of-risk. If the delete-secure-data functionality was part of the password-reset applet, then maybe using a different method to reset the password wouldn't include it.

neemobeer · May 7, 2025

No data will be lost. It's basically stating the user for whom you are changing the password will lose access to their data because they will not have the password. If you are the owner of that user account that wouldn't be the case since you changed the password or by simply supplying the new password to the owner of that user account they then have access to their data again. Also as stated an admin account typically has access to all data EXCEPT if EFS is employed on users home directory. Obviously that is bypassable since you can change the user password and then access said data.

gunrunnerjohn · May 7, 2025

That situation changes if you forget your user password to the machine and have encryption enabled.

pseymour · May 7, 2025

bsammon said:
Also, a wild guess here, but I'm guessing that the "stored passwords are deleted" thing only applies to Microsoft browsers, and not Firefox/Chrom{e|ium}

I suspect it's anything that's encrypted with the user's credentials, via the CryptoAPI or whatever. Since the credentials are changed, the decryption breaks. Just an educated guess based on using that API myself.

bsammon · May 7, 2025

neemobeer said:
No data will be lost.

Maybe we're getting into splitting hairs here, but I'm curious what you mean here. Other posts in this thread suggest that changing a user's password for them will lead to the user "losing access to all of its encrypted files, stored passwords and personal security certificates".

Are you saying:

Those things aren't lost--they'll still be there, but the user won't have access to them.
Those things are recoverable after changing a user's password this way.
Not all files are lost -- unencrypted files such as documents, spreadsheets and media files are not lost

or

4. something else?

neemobeer · May 7, 2025

Apologies my answer is incorrect in this scenario. If EFS is employed and the user's password is changed while logged in on any other account that users EFS protected data will be lost UNLESS the computer had data recovery agent configured.

reset password - "irreversible loss of information" ??

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