Transferring a password recovery process to a different computer

Did you know that Passware Kit can create a snapshot of a password recovery process at any time and resume it on a different computer? This option is available in Business, Forensic, and Ultimate editions.

Passware Tip: Learn how to transfer the projects in Passware Kit Mobile.

A password recovery attack, especially one involving multiple files or drives, can be a lengthy process that requires significant hardware resources. Sometimes, it's necessary to pause an attack to start a different one or to resume the same one with more powerful hardware and multiple Passware Kit Agents.

The state of the password recovery attack can be saved at any time, and it can be resumed later or transferred to a different computer. The attack state is saved to a Passware Job file, with all the files and/or disk images that are necessary to resume the attack. For large or data sensitive target files, there is an option to export digest files instead. 

This data can be transferred to a different computer or archived for future use.

NOTE: A digest is an extracted part of the encrypted file, which contains only data required for password recovery. No personal data is saved there. File types that support digest export have a Digest Export flag displayed in the Additional Options column in the Find Encrypted Files results or in the Item Type field in the file’s description.

Here are the steps to transfer the password recovery process to another computer:

1. While the password recovery process is running on Computer 1, click Stop:

Depending on the time that has elapsed and the number of passwords checked, a pop-up may show a warning that some progress may not be saved.

2. Click Save job and choose Export job to a different computer with full files:

Passware Tip: Choose the “Export job to a different computer with digests” option to save space. All files that support such export will be saved as digests; other files will be copied as is. 

3. Choose the folder to save the settings to. We recommend creating a new folder for this purpose. Click Select Folder.

4. Passware Kit saves the password recovery state to a Passware Job file *.pwj, and it saves the files to recover passwords for to the “target-files” folder in the same location:

Copy the target-files folder to Computer 2.

5. Install and run Passware Kit on Computer 2. On the Passware Kit start page, click JOBS | Open Job:

6. Locate the *.pwj file from the folder copied from Computer 1 and click Open.

7. Passware Kit resumes the password recovery state for the target files. Click Recover to resume the password recovery process:

8. The password recovery process is resumed on Computer 2:

9. Voila:

The passwords have been successfully recovered on Computer 2!

NOTE: If the “Export job to a different computer with digests” option was used, Passware Kit will only display the recovered passwords, without saving unprotected files or extracted data.

Related products: Passware Kit Business, Passware Kit Forensic , Passware Kit Ultimate