2023 Effective Methods for removing Windows 10 local account PW. chntpw?

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My brother passed away suddenly this October. I have his laptop and I’m trying to remove his local account password from windows 10 so that I can login to his computer and access his email and his passwords saved within his browser. His laptop is NOT encrypted.

I have tried booting his computer from Ubuntu live usb and running chntpw to remove the password. When I run through chntpw it tells me that the password has been removed successfully but once I reboot the computer the password is still there.
I followed a similar process to this video but used Ubuntu instead of CAINE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44mqR_n2...x=30&t=15s)

I love computers but I’m not a hacker or IT professional so I could really use some guidance here. I’ve seen articles saying that Windows Defender is now capable of detecting accessibility backdoors and I’m wondering if that is why chntpw is not effective for me. The articles that I’ve seen mention sethc.exe, utilman.exe but does not mention chntpw specifically. For example: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/se...backdoors/

I contacted a local computer shop and they’ve told me that they have a method for removing the password and that it does not involve exclusive software like MS-DaRT. Obviously though they would not provide specifics because they have to protect their livelihood but that gives me hope that there still is an effective method out there somewhere.

If chntpw is now completely ineffective, are there any effective methods for removing local account passwords from Windows 10 today in 2023? I appreciate your time. Thank you for reading!

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you can send yagotix a text on telegram

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add cocojx on telegram or email [email protected]

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TY