By Michael | Last Updated
When locked out of Surface PC tablet, such as Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2/3 or Surface 2/3, how to unlock it and login into Windows 8/8.1 successfully?
Actually, on locked Windows 8/8.1 logon screen, we would find there are some options we can use to unlock Surface PC tablet, such as password hint, PIN code, picture password etc logon options. And "Reset password" link and arrow on the left side of user avatar also could help to reset locked Surface password with Windows password reset disk.
So making full use of these options, you would probably unlock Surface Windows 8 locked logon screen without any other password recovery methods or tips.
If all of above options don't do for you, try following ways please to unlock locked Surface PC tablet.
Windows password recovery tool, is an effective way to unlock Windows desktop/laptop/PC tablet all the time. For example, Windows Password Genius Advanced could create a password reset disk which could easily reset or remove Windows forgotten password. So when you are locked out of Surface laptop or PC tablet, Windows Password Genius Advanced is a good choice.
Now prepare these things, Windows Password Genius Advanced, accessible computer and bootable USB drive to reset Surface password.
Step 1: Install and run Windows Password Genius Advanced on accessible computer.
Step 2: Insert bootable USB drive into computer, and then choose USB device, click Begin burning to burn password reset disk into USB drive.
Step 3: After successfully creating USB password reset disk, plug it into locked Surface. And then set Surface boot from USB device.
Step 4: Until Windows Password Genius Advanced program runs on locked Surface, select Windows system and user account you need to reset password, and click Reset Password.
When the selected user password becomes blank, it means that you have unlocked Surface PC tablet with Windows password recovery tool. What you just need to do is to reboot Surface to make it effective.
With system recovery drive, you could boot into locked Surface PC and open up the command prompt. Then replace the Ease of Access Center application (utilman.exe) with another copy of the command prompt (cmd.exe) with administrative privileges. And then set a new password with "net user" command for the user whose password you want to reset.
Detailed steps to unlock Surface PC tablet:
Step 1: Enter UEFI Setup, Enable Legacy Support and Disable Safe Boot.
At the Secure Boot Configuration page enable Legacy Support and disable Secure Boot then press F10 to save changes.
Step 2: Boot to live Linux media.
Navigate to the File menu and choose Save Changes and Exit. The computer will then reboot. Immediately after reboot you will need to enter to boot menu to specify your boot device. At the startup menu choose Boot Menu. At the Boot Menu choose your boot up device (CD or USB).
Step 3: Rename utilman.exe to utilman.exe.bak.
Once booted into linux launch the file manager and locate what would be the C: drive in Windows. Enter the Windows folder and system 32 folder. And then locate utilman.exe and rename to utilman.exe.bak.
Step 4: Make a copy of cmd.exe and name it utilman.exe.
Step 5: Boot into Windows. Change the Secure Boot settings back to default, then boot into Windows.
Step 6: Click the Ease of Access button to open Command Prompt.
At the Windows login screen click the Ease of Access icon in the bottom left side of the screen and a command prompt window should pop up.
Step 7: Enter net user <username> *.
Step 8: Enter new password twice and login to Windows.
Step 9: Replace original utilman.exe and restore UEFI Secure Boot settings.
In this passage, we can see two kinds of methods are introduced, several direct ways to reset password on Surface logon screen, and two general ways for Surface password recovery. While you cannot unlock Surface PC tablet directly with sign-in options, try Windows Password Genius please, easy and powerful for unlocking locked Windows laptop/desktop/tablet.
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