Warning: modifying or resetting security product passwords can impact system protection and compliance. Only perform these steps on systems you own or administer and ensure you have authorization. This article explains a safe, administrative approach to resetting the Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 14 local admin password using built-in Windows tools and batch scripting—without providing or encouraging use of unauthorized credential-harvesting methods.
Open CMD as Administrator on the target machine.
resetpass.bat is a batch script included with Symantec Endpoint Protection 14 (and some earlier versions). It allows you to reset the SEPM administrator password without needing the current password – provided you have local administrative access to the SEPM server itself. resetpass.bat for symantec 14 download
It works by reconfiguring the internal database (embedded or external) and resetting the admin credentials back to a known default.
⚠️ Important: This should only be used on servers you own or are authorized to manage. Unauthorized password resets violate security policies and potentially laws. How to create and use a resetpass
resetpass.bat → Run as Administrator.A: Yes, but the command differs. For SEP 12, use smc -resetpwd. For SEP 14, use the methods above.
| Error Message | Cause | Solution |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Access Denied | Not running as Admin | Right-click → Run as Administrator |
| smc.exe not recognized | Wrong file path | Edit the script to point to correct install folder (e.g., C:\Program Files (x86)\...) |
| Command failed on SEP 14.3 | Syntax changed | Replace -securitypasswordreset with -p reset |
| Tamper Protection blocked | Hardware-assisted security | Boot into Safe Mode with Networking, then run script |
| The service cannot be stopped | SEP is locked by policy | Use the -f (force) flag: smc -stop -f | ⚠️ Important : This should only be used
On any machine currently running SEP 14, the necessary binaries are already present:
C:\Program Files\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection\resetpass.bat there by default. However, you can create it manually (see next section).