Problems with authorization in Windows 8 Pro

A few hours ago I ran into a problem: I could not log in to Windows 8 Pro with my password.

Here is how it was.
Recently I installed Windows 8 on a laptop (I updated it with Windows 7 according to the Windows Upgrade Offer program), and set up a freshly installed OS. I had one account with administrative rights and it was associated with a Microsoft account.
Today, suddenly the laptop rebooted (I don’t know what it was), and when I downloaded it I installed some regular updates. After that I tried to log in, but received a message:

Wrong password. Make sure you use the password for your Microsoft account. You can always reset it to account.live.com/password/reset.

This is the same message in English:

That password is incorrect. Make sure you’re using your password for your Microsoft account. You can always reset it at account.live.com/password/reset.

I changed the password to account.live.com, but I still could not log in. Since I did not create other users, I completely lost access to the laptop.

Well, that there is another computer, began to look for a solution on the Internet. I did not find anything in Russian. But in English, a large number of questions were found from those facing the same problem, the minimum date that I met was October 27th. Despite the presence of questions, I did not find any answers.
')

Decision

He began to act himself.
Before installing the distribution Windows 8 recorded on the disk. Boot from this disk, chose “System Restore” instead of installation. Further “Diagnostics” -> “Advanced Settings” -> “System Restore”. I chose the last restore point, but for some reason the restoration failed. After that, I repeated all the actions, only now I rolled back to the penultimate point. This restore was successful, and after rebooting I managed to log in.
Since the restore point was created a few days ago, all the settings made since that moment were lost and the installed programs were lost.

Perhaps there are other solutions, for example, it says here that you can boot in safe mode, and then go through authorization, then the authorization seems to be working as usual. But I did not check this option, as it is not so easy to get into safe mode.

Addition 1 :
Found a way to boot in safe mode (though not very simple). The method is based on data from this post .
Boot from the DVD, choose system restore, launch the console.
In the console, type the command

bcdedit

It will show what download options are available. We are looking for our system among them.
Next, create a copy of the system boot settings:

bcdedit / copy {system ID} / d “description of a copy of settings”

Reboot. When booting, a menu will appear to select the boot option.
Below the menu there will be a link to go to advanced settings, it is through them that you can get to the download in safe mode. Screenshots of these menus can be viewed here .
Such a complex way is relevant, if you can not log in at all, as I had, otherwise you can use the simpler option described in the same message .

Addition 2 :
Perhaps the most correct way suggested by mstyura in the comments is to activate the built-in administrator account.
It also needs a distribution disc. How to activate the administrator with screenshots described here . In short, the steps are as follows:

1. Download from DVD.
2. We select system recovery.
3. Run the console.
4. From the console, use the regedit start the registry editor.
5. In the registry, select the bush HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE .
6. In the file menu, select "Load hive ...".
7. On the system disk (in my case it was an E: disk, although Windows is installed on C :) we find the file "% windir% \ system32 \ config \ SAM" (you cannot simply substitute the specified path, since% windir% points to the system DVD).
8. The editor asks for the name of the bush, let's call it “test”.
9. Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ test \ SAM \ Domains \ Account \ Users \ 000001F4".
10. Open to edit the value of "F".
11. At offset 0038, we replace 11 by 10.
12. Click on the “test” bush and select “Unload the bush ...”.
13. Reboot.
14. The “Administrator” user should appear. We enter under it, but what to do next, honestly, I don’t know, it’s probably necessary somehow to either reset the password or unbind the account from liveID.

Supplement 3 (12/03/2012):
Again the same mistake. Looks like you have to give up liveID. It’s good that I now have a local administrator account and a recovery point was created right before the reboot.
This time the problem occurred after installing Media Center.
Later supplement the results of recovery.

Conclusion

Why am I all this: if you still have only one account associated with a Microsoft account, then just in case, create another local account with administrative rights. Also create a disk or flash drive for system recovery.