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Question from Ben: My aunt recently sold her house and moved to another state.
Before she left she gave us a used, but working Acer Aspire U5710 computer with Windows 10 on it.
She said she didn’t want to pack it up and move it because she was wanting to buy a new computer anyway.
I tried setting it up for my daughter to use but it’s asking for a password. I don’t know the password and the one my aunt gave me doesn’t work.
Is there any way to reset the password on this computer?
Rick’s answer: Ben, the short answer to your question is yes. There are actually several ways to reset an unknown password.
But that being said, I don’t recommend that in your situation, for two reasons:
1 – Your daughter would likely have a better user experience if you simply wiped out the current Windows installation and reinstalled Windows 10 from scratch.
2 – There could well be sensitive files and photos on the Acer’s hard drive that your aunt would rather not allow others to see.
While she would probably have told you had that been the case, there’s always a possibility that there are sensitive files and photos on there that she has long since forgotten about.
For those reasons, I’d feel a lot more comfortable providing instructions for starting fresh with a brand new Windows installation instead of resetting the existing login password…
The first thing you’ll need to do is create a new Windows 10 installation drive. Here’s how:
1 – Make sure you have a USB Flash Drive with at least 8GB of free space on it.
2 – Visit this page on the Microsoft website and click the Download tool now button.
3 – Follow the instructions in this section of that same page:
“Using the tool to create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) to install Windows 10 on a different PC”
Once you have created the Windows installation media (on the USB Flash Drive) you can follow the steps below to install Windows 10 from scratch on the Acer machine:
1 – Insert the USB Flash Drive you created using the steps above into an empty USB port on the Acer PC.
2 – Press the Power button and see if the machine boots from the installation USB drive. If it does, follow the directions as they appear to install Windows 10 from scratch.
If the machine boots up to the login screen and asks for a password just like it did before, you’ll need to go into the machine’s BIOS settings and set the machine to boot from the USB drive instead of the hard drive.
Follow these steps to make the change in the BIOS settings:
1 – Press and hold the PC’s Power button until it shuts down.
2 – Turn the machine back on and repeatedly press the Del key on the keyboard until the BIOS Settings Screen appears.
3 – Go into the “Boot” settings and enable booting from USB.
4 – Follow the instructions on the screen to designate USB as the primary boot device.
5 – Save the change you made to the BIOS settings.
6 – Boot the PC from the USB Flash Drive and initiate the Windows 10 installation procedure.
That’s all there is to it, Ben. After the Windows 10 installation is complete you can help your daughter set up the machine to her liking, including the installation of her preferred programs, apps and printer driver.
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