If you have forgotten your password, there are a couple of online options available to you to regain access to your account. We hope that the information below will help guide you in understanding the basics of resetting your password.

Before you try the reset options, you may want to check these following hints (just in case the password is not the issue):

1. Verify the email address is spelled correctly. You may want to check the spelling on the domain name (hotmail.com or live.com) as well. A simple mistyped letter is a big cause in access problems.
2. Check your domain name: new Hotmail accounts are being created under @live.com domain names. If you recently created your account in Hotmail, you may want to try @live.com as the domain to see if this resolves your problem.
3. Check your CAPS Lock on your keyboard when typing in your password. Our passwords are case sensitive and this simple check has been known to resolve access issues.
4. Try typing your password in another window or application (such as Notepad) to ensure that you are typing the correct password.

Full article at Password Reset Basics - I forgot my password - Windows Live Help.

Addl help: Live.com.