How to deal with 'Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password' error

If you received error "Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password" there can be 3 possible causes of this.

1. Most obvious one. You have entered username or password incorrect. Please make sure you had entered it correctly.
2. If your network is in domain, use 'DOMAIN\Username' instead or just 'Username', since remote PC may treat Username as local user.
3. Sharing and security model for local accounts is set to 'Guest only' on remote PC. This is most common issue, since it is set like that by default in Windows XP. To change it please do following steps:
   1. Open 'Control panel'
   2. Select 'Administrative Tools'
   3. Open 'Local security policy'
   4. On the left pane navigate to 'Security Settings' => 'Local policies' => 'Security Options'
   5. On the right pane find 'Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts'
   6. Double-click on it in order to change
   7. Set it to 'Classic - Local users authenticate as themselves'
   
   You can also do that in registry:
   
   1. Press on windows 'Start' button
   2. Click on 'Run...'
   3. Type 'regedit' and press Enter
   4. On the left pane navigate to
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
      
      
   5. On the right pane you will find value 'forceguest', if it is not there you need to create it, by clicking menu 'Edit' => 'New' => 'DWORD value'
   6. Double click on 'forceguest' in order to change it
   7. Set it to '0'
   
   Reboot your remote PC and try to connect to it with Recover Keys again.

See also