Skip to content

Safety model

RECON is a recovery and repair toolbox. It is powerful because it works from outside the installed Windows — which is exactly why it operates inside clear boundaries. These are built into the tools, not just documented here.

Authorized machines only

Use RECON only on machines you own or are explicitly authorized to service. Booting another person's computer from external media to access their files without permission is not what this tool is for.

Encryption is never bypassed

This is the hard line of the whole project.

  • Drives protected by BitLocker or other encryption require the owner's recovery key.
  • RECON detects and surfaces locked drives and helps you unlock them with the key (via the standard manage-bde tooling WinPE provides).
  • Nothing in RECON attempts to circumvent, crack, or work around encryption. A locked drive you can't unlock stays locked.

In the Files browser, a locked drive is shown but not read until it's unlocked with the recovery key. In the Repair Center, every offline action refuses to touch a locked volume.

Password reset is local accounts only

The Reset a password action clears the password of a local Windows account by editing the offline SAM database (using NTPWEdit, which backs up the SAM first).

  • It works on local accounts on an offline Windows, on an authorized machine.
  • It cannot reset a Microsoft-account or domain login — those aren't stored on the machine. (A Microsoft account is reset online at account.live.com/password/reset.)
  • It does not bypass BitLocker — unlock the drive with the recovery key first.

See Repair Center → Reset a password.

Data copies never alter the source

The Files Copy to backup flow copies selected files and folders to a RECON Recovery folder on a drive you choose. It reads from the source and writes to the destination — it never modifies, moves, or deletes anything on the source drive.

Destructive actions are guarded

Anywhere RECON can delete (cleanup, the uninstaller), deletions are reviewed, confirmed, and scoped: you see what will be removed, you confirm it, junction/reparse points are not followed, and the tools refuse to operate on protected locations. WinPE has no Recycle Bin, so deletes there are permanent and always prompt.

Trusted tool sources

Third-party tools are fetched from their official sources (see Bundled tools). The one binary that edits the SAM, NTPWEdit, is pinned to a verified copy of the genuine official release (Internet Archive snapshot, SHA-1 verified) — a random SAM-editing binary would be a supply-chain risk, so it's treated as one.