Password reset for Windows Server local admin hosted on NUTANIX HCI

 Hi,

Password reset using the method where you change the accessibility button is pretty easy and pretty much covered in many blogs.

In my previous post, I have covered how to do a password reset for Windows Server Core.

However, with Nutanix, there is a need for VirtIO and their drivers, and this is something we usually forget when we do password reset for Windows servers being hosted on Nutanix.

Before we begin, mount 1x Windows OS disk and 1x Nutanix VirtIO installer to the CD room drive.

1x CD rom = Windows OS disk

1x CD rom = Nutanix VirtIO

1. Power on the VM and boot from the Windows OS disk.

2. Click next and choose to repair the computer

3. Choose troubleshoot with CMD

4.Type: "wmic logicaldisk get caption"

5. Identify which drive is the OS disk and which drive is the VirtIO disk.

in this example below, D drive is the VirtIO disk, X drive is the Windows OS disk.

6. Navigate to the VirtIO disk driver for your windows OS installation.

For eg: cd d:\"Windows Server 2016"\amd64

7. type drvload vioscsi.inf

8. Type: "wmic logicaldisk get caption"

9. You should see more drives now. 

10. Identify the drive that holds your Windows OS Installation

(guide to check: it should contain program files, users and windows. Inside your User folder should consists of all the local users to the computer)

11. cd drive:\windows\system32

12.ren utilman.exe utilmanold.exe

13. copy cmd.exe utilman.exe

14. Restart the server

15. Click on the Accessibility icon and CMD should launch.

16. type in CMD net user username password /active:yes

17. Login with credentials set in Step 16.

18.  Open CMD and  cd drive:\windows\system32

19. Rename back your old utilman back in place.

ren utilman.exe utilmanCMD.exe

ren utilmanold.exe utilman.exe

Credits:

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/kbs/details?targetId=kA00e000000kAWeCAM

http://www.kieranlane.com/2013/09/18/resetting-administrator-password-windows-2012/