Recover password on a VM. Or any machine you have physical access to.

Oh I forgot my password. Not sure what happened really, copied the VM and now I cannot login.

Beware if you have EFS or encrypted files. You will probably have a bad time.

Create a WinPE ISO

Install the ADK, run Deployment tool as admin then run

 copype amd64 C:\WinPE_amd64
 MakeWinPEMedia /ISO C:\WinPE_amd64 C:\WinPE_amd64\WinPE_amd64.iso

Mount that ISO as a CD/DVD

Something something VM settings.

Force the VM to boot from CD

Edit the .vmx of your VM and add

 bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"

Now the fun. I found my VM drive, D:

Hijack a system utility

D:
cd D:\windows\system32
ren utilman.exe utilman.exe.old
copy cmd.exe utilman.exe

Reboot.

At the password prompt open the accessibilty tools, that little icon at the bottom.

 whoami

I am system. That's handy.

Update password

 net user Administrator Password123

And login.

Voila.