How to recover Windows password using ophcrack

Ophcrack is a Microsoft Windows password cracker. It’s uses Rainbow table to crack the passwords, while still be able to use brute-force to do the job. Ophcrack can recover password from all version of Windows.For this example, we’ll be using Ophcrack Live CD which already has all the software and required packages installed and can do the password cracking automatically.To recover your Windows passwords, follow the following steps

Download the Live CD from the official website here;

• http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/download.php

Choose the version of the Windows system that you want to recover the password from. Using the Vista version to crack XP password will not work, and vice versa.

Burn the image you’ve downloaded to CD.

Using the Live CD you’ve prepared, boot your machine from it. Upon booting, you’ll be presented with the following screen. Just press Enter.

The booting process might take a while

Once booted, ophcrack will automatically launch and start cracking the password it found on the hard drive.

It would take quite a while for ophcrack to finish cracking the passwords, and progress are shown on the program window while they’re at it. The screen below shows the program finished cracking one password of the user Username with the password password.