Manually resetting Windows account password

To reset account passwords in Windows without an existing administrator account privileges, there are two choices: 
 1) Do a repair install of Windows from your installation media, and after the initial reboot and “Installing Windows” screen, wait for Installing Devices and then hit Shift-F10 , then type in nusrmgr.cpl and hit enter to access the User Accounts in the Control Panel. 
 e.g.: http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/lpmarticle.asp?id=305 
 Or 
 2) Use a third party password reset utility to create a password reset bootable disk, such as: http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/ 
 The advantage to route #2 is that it is usually faster, however you generally are left best resetting passwords rather than creating a new one. You can then change from a blank password to an actual password once you have restored access to Windows.