How can I recover my father inlaws password for his hot mail account?

I’m going to assume you tried the forgot password icon? It should trigger a text or a message to another email to reset or recover the password.

Yes I did but don’t know all the profile he used to creat the account saying not enought info and to many attempt in 24 hours

I’m not sure I understand. Doesn’t the website prompt you to choose a way to recover the password?

Sounds like @LaurieD‘s FIL can’t remember the “Code word”; i.e mothers name, first pet, home town. . . .

After a number of attempts, it will lock you out and you can’t try again for 24 hours. When you do, there should be a security question to answer before you can reset the password. See if your FIL can answer that. If not, he will probably have to create a new account.

There are good reasons that it’s not easy to hack your way into an email account. We don’t even know that this question is really about your father-in-law, or that he wants you to try to get into his email.

The point is – all he can really do is follow the steps given by Hotmail for password or account recovery, and if they don’t work because he doesn’t maintain his own security information properly, then he can’t get back in. Period. Perhaps next time, he’ll keep better records.

I agree in principle with @dappled_leaves’ response: security rules are made the way they are for particular reasons, and it is actually a good thing that it’s difficult for someone to hack the account. Kudos to Hotmail for that.

However, with an aging online population and with the prevalence of Alzheimer’s among old folks to begin with, and the fact that security rules commonly rely upon items from the account creator’s / owner’s past as touchstones for identity verification, how can we avoid the inevitable problems with those folks legitimately forgetting important parts of their past used to verify the accounts?

Write down your passwords and keep them locked up somewhere.

Does he have any important past emails that he needs or would he be able to do without them?

If he can do without them without negative effects upon his life, then just put a number 2 after his old screen name and create a new account.

This way it will be easy for friends to remember rather than switching to a totally different screen name.

Tto prevent this happening again, have him put his password and recovery info into a sealed envelope to give to you (or someone else whom he trusts) to be opened only if necessary.

Depends on the browser. In Firefox you can get it to show you the saved password. Other browsers should have a similar option. For example

Preferences -> Security -> Saved Passwords

At least that is how you do it in Firefox.