A Sense of Security

Password: Swordfish

In my Server 2012 lab, I’m running a few different Domain Controllers in order to best represent a production environment. I spend a majority of my time working on the Primary Domain Controller and seldom even boot the other DCs up unless I’m working on AD replication exercises or something else that requires multiple servers. Today was a day where I needed a couple different servers up and unfortunately, I forgot the password to one of my servers. Normally, my head is like a steel trap when it comes to passwords. I still remember the sysop password of my BBS I had in middle school, but between the infrequent use and having a toddler waking up every day at 5:45 am, I just couldn’t remember. I did some searching and found an incredibly easy hack for resetting the administrator password. These instructions and pictures will be for Server 2012 R2, but I’m assuming that they’ll work on any Windows-based system.

I've recently started messing around with PowerShell and Server Core in preparation for the Server 2012 R2 exams. With the exception of Cisco IOS, I haven't really used the command line except for running ipconfig for a longtime and based off of Microsoft's objectives for the Server 2012 R2 exams it seems that they're trying to force a paradigm shift away from the GUI and toward command line administration of servers.  I'll post PowerShell tips and tricks as I figure them out.

 From the command prompt type Powershell to enter a PowerShell session. After PowerShell launches, type Start-Process PowerShell -Verb RunAs and it will bring up a PowerShell prompt in Administrator mode.