I recently bought my Sister’s old tower. It’s a Gateway DX4380 with 6GB of memory. They haven’t used it for years and had an old version of Windows 10 installed which I updated to the latest version.
When I set up my computers I always use a local account. But I don’t like the security questions asked for a local account password. So, during the install, I chose the option not to add a password, I was going to do it later at the command prompt.
So here’s how to change or add a password at a command prompt.
First, type cmd in the search-bar. When it appears in the list, click on Run as administrator.
Then type the following and press Enter.
net user
This will help you isolate your account names. In my case it’s just Terry.
Then type the following, hitting enter after. Put you user account name and desired password.
In my case: net user Terry password
And that’s it. You should get a message The command completed successfully. This way, it shows you the password your typing. If you want it a little more secure, type the following, putting in your user account.
Net user username *
In my case I typed net user terry * and hit enter. Note there is a space between the username and the star at the end. And to get the star on my keyboard I press Shift + 8.
Then it will prompt you for a password. Type it in but you will not see anything being typed, not even stars, that’s the way it should be. Press enter when done and then retype it and press enter. If done correctly you should get the message The command completed successfully.
This is for local accounts only and not Microsoft accounts.