Steph: Hi and welcome back to HP How To For You.
I'm Steph and this is Bill.
And every two weeks we bring you tips, tricks and how to information,
based on what you want to hear about for your HP products.
Bill: And today we are going to talk about a question that we get a lot.
Steph: A lot.
Bill: What do I do if I forgot my password?
Steph: That's right.
We get this question all the time and it can be pretty frustrating.
So what do we do?
Bill: Well, there are a few things to keep in mind.
The first thing is to figure out what type of account that you have.
Is it a Microsoft account?
Or is it a local PC account?
Steph: Well, how do you know what type you have?
Bill: Well, if you log on to your PC using an email address,
you probably have a Microsoft connected account.
If you log on with a username or your name, you probably have a local account.
This is the first step because password recovery methods are different,
depending on which type of account you have.
Steph: Okay, that makes sense.
So let us say that I have a Microsoft connected account.
What do I do?
Bill: That is really easy because when you have a Microsoft connected account,
you are going to need access to the internet on a different device,
like a phone or a tablet or another PC.
Steph: Like a friend's PC?
Bill: Right.
Steph: Cool.
Bill: And not the one that you locked yourself out of.
Steph: That makes sense.
Bill: All right. So let us go ahead and show you how to do this.
So you are going to need to go to account.live.com/password/reset
and that will take you through the reset process.
And you are going to want to click on I forgot my password
and then click Reset your password.
It is going to send you a secondary authentication method.
And what that is, is if you have set up a secondary email address
or you set up your phone as your secondary option,
it will either send you an email or a text message with a code in it.
And that is your authentication code to reset your password with. And that's it.
Steph: That looks pretty simple. What do I do if I have a local account?
Bill: Now if you have a local account, I recommend
that you prepare before you forget your password,
by creating a password recovery disk.
And that's really simple.
What you want to do is just click on the Start menu and type in password.
And what that will give you is a list of options.
And one of those options is Create a password reset disk.
Follow the prompts on the screen and create that password reset disk.
Steph: Okay. So I have a local account.
I have forgotten my password but I do have a recovery disk.
Bill: Excellent. All you will need to do is insert the recovery disk,
the password recovery disk, when you are prompted.
And then follow the steps on the screen to reset your password.
Steph: And once I have that, then I will be able to sign in with my new password?
Bill: Yep, absolutely.
Steph: Okay. So what do I do if I have forgotten my password,
I have a local account but I did not make a recovery disk?
I would never do that but a friend of a friend did and
they are wondering how to get back into their PC.
Bill: Sure. You have one other option.
Steph: Okay.
Bill: To do this, you need an account on that same PC that has administrative privileges,
which means you can log into that account and then change the password
on the account that you are locked out of.
Now to do that, you will need to go into the PC, log in as the administrator,
go into user accounts and then manage that other user account and change the password.
Then you can log in with the new password.
Steph: Perfect.
Bill: Easy.
Steph: Easy. Alright.
So you have shared with us how to reset a forgotten sign-in password.
Do you have any tips for creating a strong password?
I mean, what kind of password should I use now?
Bill: So it is a really good question. And a lot of people ask that.
A really good, strong password is at least eight characters
and it contains capitals and lower case letters.
It containers numbers and symbols and you should
avoid using complete names or phrases, like "Bill" is not a good password.
Steph: "Bill" is not a good password.
Bill: No.
Steph: So I probably need to change my password.
Bill: Okay, yeah, you might want to do that.
Steph: So then what are some good alternatives to "Bill"?
Theoretically speaking, because of course I would never use the name Bill as my password.
Bill: Well, you could use some acronyms or you could replace letters with
numbers or symbols and that would help make it a little more difficult for people to guess.
Steph: So instead of just "Bill", which I would never use,
let us go with an acronym and I will use symbols and numbers in place of letters.
Bill: Great. Let us do that.
Steph: All right.
Bill: Let us change password.
Steph: So, changing my password. Let us go with "BillismymancrushMonday".
Or how about "Bill'snumber1fan"? Or maybe "Billismyhero"?
Or we could always use your birthday J --
Bill: Hey, hey, hey, that is, that is enough. We can stick... Yeah, you can change it later.
Those are all really good examples of passwords, except for your birthday.
Don't use your birthday.
That is not good.
I think that is a wrap for today.
Steph: Yes, I think you are probably right.
Please follow us on our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/HowTo4U or
you can find us on the HP support forum at...
Bill: HP.com/supportforum.
Steph: You can find us there under the blog section.
Leave us a comment.
Let us know what you want to hear about in future episodes
and we will talk to you guys later.
Bill: See you guys.
Steph: Awkward!
Bill: Awkward, really awkward.
Bill is my... where did you come with these?
Steph: That is all Jamie.
Bill: I do not know how to do it. I have to watch it.
And this is not our local account.
To make the password hard to guess and hard to remember.
Steph: All right. That is a wrap for today.
Bill: Oh, I forget that.