AsterWin

AsterWin is a lightweight Windows application designed specifically for helping you recover lost or forgotten passwords that are hidden behind asterisks, provided that the passwords were saved and stored by the target software programs.

Portable running mode

Portability comes with several advantages to your system, as the tool doesn’t leave any entries in the Windows registry and store configuration data in your system. Plus, you can bypass the installation process and open it by simply running the EXE file.
Uninstalling the program from your system means deleting the files that you have grabbed from the Internet. In addition, you may save it on any USB flash drive or other devices and carry it with you.

Minimalistic GUI

You are welcomed by a small and simple window that embeds only a few configuration settings that you can make use of. All dedicated parameters are embedded in a single window, so there are no intricate features hidden under its hood.
The utility does not include a help manual in the package but you don’t need one in order to decode the features, as they are highly intuitive.

How it works

As it has been mentioned from the start, AsterWin can decrypt passwords only if they are saved by the target program. It works especially with password text-boxes, and you need to firstly run the application containing the password that you want to reveal.
AsterWin is not able to grab passwords in Internet Explorer web pages because they are stored in a different way than other utilities. The retrieved passwords are revealed in the main window of the program and you may copy the information to the clipboard so you can paste it into other third-party tools.

Bottom line

All things considered, AsterWin integrates a basic suite of features for helping you retrieve lost passwords, and can be mastered by all types of users, regardless of their experience level.
On the downside, the application hasn’t been updated for a long time, so you may encounter compatibility issues especially if you run it on newer operating systems. You can make use of its decryption capabilities especially if you are the owner of an old OS, such as Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP.