You might already know how to display hidden files in Windows 7, but do you know how to display hidden passwords? Many programs don’t actually display a password due to security reasons. If you want to recover the hidden passwords, here’s a free tool to do it.
The passwords are often replaced with asterisks ***** or other symbols and when you forget it, you’ll never know what the actual password was. All browsers for example can store passwords and will usually protect them from people looking over your shoulders by displaying them as *****.
To recover the password to your favorite website, you can use the following handy tool from Nirsoft: Asterisks Logger
Download Asterisks Logger from http://www.nirsoft.net/(you have to scroll down to download the logger).
Not all applications store the passwords behind the asterisks, so you can’t always recover hidden passwords. Most programs like Outlook, Thunderbird and any other program with a normal password text-box will allow you to recover the password. You can then save your password as a HTML file or a plain text file.