MySQL 8.0.17 on Windows - I forgot my root password, dont need to keep any previous DBs
It's possible re-initialize the data directory to produce an empty MySQL instance. Here is the documentation describing the process: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/data-directory-initialization.html .

It tells the command to perform is:

bin\mysqld --initialize --console


or the following if you want to connect as root without password:

bin\mysqld --initialize-insecure --console


The data currently in the data dir would be overwritten. If there still is a chance it might be needed in future, you may find datadir param in my.cnf and backup the directory before proceeding to re-initialization.

Another possible option is to uninstall MySQL, remove or rename datadir as found in my.cnf and install again. It shouldn't ask for the old root password then.