1CHNTPW(8) System Manager's Manual CHNTPW(8)
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6 chntpw - utility to overwrite Windows NT/2000 SAM passwords
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9 chntpw [options] <samfile> [systemfile] [securityfile] [otherreghive]
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13 This manual page documents briefly the chntpw command. This manual
14 page was written for the Debian distribution because the original pro‐
15 gram does not have a manual page.
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17 chntpw is a utility to view some information and change user passwords
18 in a Windows NT/2000 SAM userdatabase file. It is not necessary to know
19 the old passwords to reset them. In addition it contains a simple reg‐
20 istry editor (same size data writes) and hex-editor with which the
21 information contained in a registry file can be browsed and modified.
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24 -h Show summary of options.
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26 -u username
27 Username to change. Default is Administrator
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29 -l List all users in the SAM database.
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31 -i Interactive: list all users (as per -l) and then ask for the
32 user to change.
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34 -e Registry editor with limited capabilities.
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36 -d Use buffer debugger.
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38 -t Show hexdumps of structs/segments (deprecated debug function).
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41 chntpw sam system
42 Opens registry hives sam and system and change administrator
43 account. This will work even if the name has been changed or it
44 has been localized (since different language versions of NT use
45 different administrator names).
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47 chntpw -u jabbathehutt mysam
48 Prompts for password for jabbathehutt and changes it in the
49 mysam registry file, if found (otherwise do nothing)
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52 If you are looking for an automated procedure for password recovery,
53 you might look at the bootdisks provided by the upstream author at
54 http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
55 There is more information on how this program works available at
56 /usr/share/doc/chntpw. This information includes in-depth information
57 on how the registry works, what are syskeys and some other issues.
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60 This manual page was written by Javier Fernandez-Sanguino <jfs@com‐
61 puter.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by oth‐
62 ers).
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66 30th May 2002 CHNTPW(8)