# How to Crack Windows 10, 8 & 7 Password using John the Ripper 🎩

**URL:** <https://onehack.st/t/how-to-crack-windows-10-8-7-password-using-john-the-ripper/56895>\
**Category:** Tutorials & Methods\
**Tags:** hacking, cracking, tips-tricks\
**Created:** [September 12, 2019, 9:12pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/how-to-crack-windows-10-8-7-password-using-john-the-ripper/56895 "2019-09-12T21:12:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![TheJoker](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/thejoker/32/22660_2.png) [@TheJoker](https://onehack.st/u/TheJoker)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 9:12pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/how-to-crack-windows-10-8-7-password-using-john-the-ripper/56895/1 "2019-09-12T21:12:53Z")

</div>

**Forgot the password to your Windows admin account?** There are a lot of different reasons why one would want to hack a Windows password. **This tutorial will show you how to use John the Ripper to crack Windows 10, 8 and 7 password on your own PC.**

 ![john_the_ripper_bg](https://onehack.st/uploads/default/original/3X/a/d/ad333cd2d5ec9bc4663feda8599fe1df95c11a69.jpeg)

## Step 1: Extract Hashes from Windows

Security Account Manager (SAM) is a database file in Windows 10/8/7/XP that stores user passwords in encrypted form, which could be located in the following directory:  
`C:\Windows\system32\config`

- The first thing we need to do is grab the password hashes from the SAM file. Just download the freeware [PwDump7](http://www.openwall.com/passwords/windows-pwdump)and unzip it on your local PC.

**Open a Command Prompt**. Navigate to the folder where you extract the PwDump7 app, and then type the following command:

`PwDump7.exe > d:\hash.txt`

 ![extract-windows-password-hashes](https://onehack.st/uploads/default/original/3X/4/5/45e3d3caa2347a106a71321be8c713a5f70c3180.png)

> Once you press Enter, PwDump7 will grab the password hashes from your current system and save it into the file `D:\hash.txt.`

**Step 2: Cracking Passwords with John the Ripper**

As you can see the password hashes are still unreadable, and we **need to crack them using John the Ripper**. John the Ripper is one of the most popular password cracking tools available that can run on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

## Just download the Windows binaries of [John the Ripper](http://www.openwall.com/john/), and unzip it.

Open a Command Prompt and change into the directory where John the Ripper is located, then type:

`john --format=LM d:\hash.txt`

 ![crack-password-with-john-the-ripper](https://onehack.st/uploads/default/original/3X/e/5/e5f0cdf03be0421ca14d76b127352877a6aa9037.png)

- It will start cracking your Windows password. In my example, you can clearly see that John the Ripper has cracked the password within matter of seconds.

**Final Words**

> John the Ripper is probably the world’s best known password cracking tool. But its lack of a GUI interface makes a bit more challenging to use. Don’t use it for illegal purposes.