Best or should I say easy way to get into wife's laptop?

She has not used it in a year or two and has tried but can not remember the log in. No funny biz here. I am not trying to spy on her a or anyone else.
For 2 years was on.work computers and had to change password ever 4 weeks. And after being on a computer all day was done. And did not want to even look at one.
So just checked text from.work on phone.
Is there some way to get into it to change it so she can use it again.
Think it is an HP.

Make and actual model will help.

The old way was to replace the chip on the board, but now there are many hacks to get them to boot up but need what it really is.

Is the the bios password or will it boot and its a windows password she cant get.

And is there info shes trying to retrieve or ?

If its a windows password the easy way is simply use the restore discs.

If it is a Windows 10 password, you can try to recover that password. If it is a local password, if the display shows "recover password" on the login screen, you can try that if she set up security questions.

Otherwise, you can reset it and start over (most likely. It could still be locked depending on the security options selected when she set it up).

Easiest cheapest way is to burn a linux live CD, or make a bootable USB from a linux distro, boot into the live session, go into the Windows file system with this path

C:\Windows\System32\config\sam

Find her account name and delete the password.

Remove the live CD / USB, reboot into windows and she can access her account without a password. First thing to do is assign a password she'll remember and done.

In linux speak C drive is going to be sd* where * is a variable depending on type of hard drive.

Found my CD! Trinity Rescue Kit This one linky is dedicated to password recovery only and as I recall, it's VERY easy to use. Just download it to bootable media for the laptop, boot from it and follow directions.

After you boot Trinity Rescue Kit, you should see the following screen. Scroll down to the “Windows password resetting” option, then hit Enter. Next select the “Winpass prompts for username first” option. TRK will ask you the username for the account for which you want to reset the password.

none of the links to download it works. looks like they got taken down or something.

Was it ever on the company network?

If it was, and the company used a domain just take it to work, connect it to the local network and her current network login will log it in.

There was some very good info above but knowing which operating system makes a big difference on hacking past the password. Is it Windows 7, 8, 10?

Found it! Download success!

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/trinity_rescue_kit.html

Version 3.4 claims to be for Win7, the last post @ chntpw is dated 2015, the latest file in ver 3.4 is dated 2011. I believe secure boot came out several years later, you may have to disable UEFI / secure boot to get it to boot. I haven't had need of it in a decade or so, was surprised and kinda excited to find my ver 3.3 CD.

Okay, I've successfully reset my local administrator account password on an older (2010, former server, dual processor) Win10 computer. It's a bit geekier than I recall, read the menu choices carefully. If you run into troubles, ask.

Basically, if you're used to using a number pad on the right side of the keyboard, turn on number lock or use the number keys above the letters
Run from RAM, choice 2
Mount all drives
Remember the name of the user account you want to reset, case sensitive, it'll ask you which account you want to blank the password
When it came time to reboot, mine didn't seem to want to, since my patience level is patience hell, let's kill something, I forced reboot with the power button
Lastly, Windows will complain when it restarts it wants a password.

HTH

Thanks, it is windows 8 or XP the batt is dead and she said we will look at it next week sometime as has not used it in quite some time.