In what format does windows store account passwords?

Question

Passwords

In what format does windows store passwords?

Answer 1

Windows, like many other operating systems, does not store encrypted passwords.
The password hash is stored.
The hash is obtained by one-way algorithmic transformations. The reverse operation is not possible.
For authorization, the password you entered is hashed, and the hash is compared with what is saved - if they match, then you entered the correct password.
If you were able to get someone else's hash, the only thing you can do is guess the password, each time calculating its hash, and compare the hashes.
PS
To speed up such hacking, rainbow tables are also used and on weak algorithms, collisions can be more common
(google)

Answer 2

stored in a special encrypted form, these are the so-called hash codes. And in order to "translate" them into a language understandable and accessible to the common man, there are special programs. Account passwords in Windows 7 and Windows XP can be found on drive "C" in a folder called Windows. There you need to find the System32 folder, and in it - Config. There you can find a file called SAM