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How to Bypass Windows 8 Password on ASUS VivoTab Smart Tablet

September 22nd, 2014 by Admin

Forgot Windows 8 password and can’t get into your ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet? You don’t have to trash the computer, or even perform a dreaded factory restore. Here’s how you can bypass Windows 8 password on ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet, without losing any file or data.

How to Bypass Windows 8 Password on ASUS VivoTab Smart Tablet?

Before getting started, you need to find a password recovery utility that supports UEFI booting, because ASUS VivoTab Smart uses 32-bit UEFI firmware instead of legacy BIOS. Here we’ll use the Enterprise edition of PCUnlocker, which works with 32-bit/64-bit UEFI-based computers.

Use a secondary PC to download the full version of PCUnlocker Enterprise (trial version). Unzip the downloaded file and you’ll get a CD image called pcunlocker.iso, which needs to be burned onto a USB flash drive (or CD) with the ISO2Disc program. Remember to choose the GPT (required for UEFI boot) option.

After you’ve created a PCUnlocker USB drive, use a Micro USB adapter to connect it to your ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet. If your tablet is running, you must turn off the tablet.

While pressing the Power button, hold the volume down button until you get to the Boot Device Menu screen. From there select Enter Setup. In the BIOS Setup, select the Security tab, disable Secure Boot and Default Key Provisioning.

asus-vivotab-smart-bios

Navigate to the Boot tab. Under the Boot Option Priorities section, set your USB flash drive as the first boot option. Save your changes and exit BIOS.

The tablet will restart and boot from your created USB drive. After a while, you’ll get to the PCUnlocker program which automatically locates all Windows accounts on your tablet. Choose an account and click on Reset Password. It will bypass / remove your forgotten password in no time.

Now you’ve successfully bypassed Windows 8 password on your ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet. Disconnect the USB drive and you can then boot into Windows 8 without entering a password!

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 8

Tags: asus tablet password reset ASUS VivoTab password reset ASUS VivoTab Smart password asus windows 8 password forgot ASUS windows 8 password reset bypass asus windows 8 password

How to Convert Hyper-V VHDX to VHD with PowerShell

September 20th, 2014 by Admin

VHDX is a new format of virtual hard disk that appeared in Windows Server 2012. The main advantage of VHDX is its increased storage capacity of 64 TB, instead of VHD’s standard storage limit of 2 TB. However, VHDX files are not compatible with previous versions of Windows Server and Windows Azure. Luckily there is a simple way to convert VHDX to VHD with the cmdlet Convert-VHD (this work only on hyper-v enabled machines).

How to Convert Hyper-V VHDX to VHD with PowerShell?

Open a PowerShell window on the server that houses your .vhdx files and execute the following command:

Convert-VHD –Path c:\test\win7.vhdx –DestinationPath c:\test\win7.vhd

convert-vhdx

You can also specify whether you want a dynamic or fixed disk – but that is optional. To make the virtual hard disk type dynamic, use the switch -VHDType Dynamic. To make the virtual hard disk type fixed, use the switch -VHDType Fixed.

You can actually use the same process to convert a VHD file back to a VHDX file:

Convert-VHD –Path c:\test\win7.vhd –DestinationPath c:\test\win7.vhdx

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Tags: convert vhd to vhdx convert vhdx to vhd convert virtual hard disk hyper-v vhdx converter

How to Reset VHDX Password for Hyper-V Windows VM

September 19th, 2014 by Admin

VHDX is a Hyper-V virtual hard disk format introduced in Windows Server 2012. If you’ve forgotten Windows user password for a Hyper-V virtual machine (VM), PCUnlocker can be of help! Just mount the .vhdx image and it allows you to reset lost Hyper-V password immediately!

How to Reset VHDX Password for Hyper-V Windows VM?

PCUnlocker comes as a CD image that needs to run from a CD or USB drive. To get started, you need to burn the PCUnlocker ISO image to a blank CD or USB drive. This can be done with the free burning program ISO2Disc.
After you’ve created a boot CD/USB drive, insert it to your computer that your VHDX file is stored on. Change the boot priority order in BIOS and get the computer to boot from your created media.
Once booted to the PCUnlocker program, click on the Options button at the left bottom of the screen, and then select Mount Virtual Drive. In the file open dialog box, choose your VHDX image and click Open.
The program will mount the selected VHDX file as virtual drive. Click the Browse button to locate the Windows SAM registry file on your virtual drive, it will display a list of existing Windows accounts in your Hyper-V VM.
Select a user account that you want to reset, and click on Reset Password button. The program will reset your Windows VHDX password and unlock the account if it’s already locked out or disabled.
Click Restart and disconnect the CD/USB drive. Afterwards you can turn on your Hyper-V virtual machine and login without entering a password!

Note: After password resetting for a VHDX image, you might experience a power-on issue and this can be resolved easily with this trick: Fix: The chain of virtual hard disks is inaccessible.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks

Tags: hyper-v vm password reset Hyper-V password reset vhdx password virtual hard disk password

Fix: The chain of virtual hard disks is inaccessible

September 16th, 2014 by Admin

I have Hyper-V running on a Windows 8 laptop. Within Hyper-V is a Windows 7 Pro virtual machine for test purpose. Everything was working fine until I mounted the VHD file using Disk Management so I can browse the virtual drive in Windows Explorer. I didn’t make any changes and then just dismounted it. Afterwards when I tried to turn on the virtual machine I got an error saying “The chain of virtual hard disks is inaccessible. There was an error opening a virtual hard disk further up the chain“.

hyper-v-error

This should be a known issue with Hyper-V and we can reproduce the error by doing the same things with one of your .vhdx file. Here is how I fix the error:

In the Hyper-V Manager, right-click on the problematic virtual machine and select Settings.
The Settings dialog for the VM will appear. Under IDE Controller 0, select the Hard Drive. Click on Inspect on your virtual hard disk.
In the Virtual Hard Disk Properties, you’ll see the error which prevents your VM from powering on. Click Reconnect button.
When the Edit Virtual Hard Disk Wizard appears, click on Next.
Click the Browse button and locate the VHD file for your Hyper-V VM. Check the Ignore ID mismatch checkbox, then click Next.
Click on Finish.

This should fix your problem. I hope this helps you out if you run into the same problem.

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Tags: can't start Hyper-V VM error opening a virtual hard disk The chain of virtual hard disks is corrupted The chain of virtual hard disks is inaccessible

Use VHD to Dual Boot Windows 8.1 on Windows 7 PC

September 15th, 2014 by Admin

Got a Windows 7 PC and want to install Windows 8.1 as a second operating system for dual-booting? All you have to do is create a new partition for Windows 8.1, then install it. But what to do if you don’t have a spare partition to do this? In this post we’ll learn how to install Windows 8.1 into a virtual hard disk (VHD) and dual boot Windows 8.1 on a Windows 7 PC, without partitioning.

How to Use VHD to Dual Boot Windows 8.1 on Windows 7 PC?

Boot your computer from Windows 8.1 installation DVD or USB drive. If you have a Windows 8.1 ISO image, you can make a installation disc from the ISO image using the freeware ISO2Disc.
After a few minutes, you’ll see the Windows Setup screen. Pick a language (U.S. English is the default), and click Next.
The next screen allows you to install or repair Windows 8. Press Shift + F10 to open up a Command Prompt.
Now you need to use the diskpart utility to create a virtual drive that Windows 8.1 will be installed on. Type diskpart and press Enter to open the command-line disk partitioning utility.
At the diskpart prompt, type the following commands, pressing Enter after each one:
- list disk
  This shows your currently attached hard disks. In this example I only have one, Disk 0.
- select disk 0
- list vol
  Show all the volumes that exist on that disk. You need to know the drive letter that you want to store your VHD file on.
- create vdisk file=c:\win8.vhd maximum=10000 type=expandable
  This creates a dynamic VHD that can grow to 10GB in the root of C:\ drive. If your partition is smaller than 10GB then be sure to use a smaller value for maximum that is less than your actual partition size.
- select vdisk file=c:\win8.vhd
  After selecting this vdisk, the following commands will apply to it
- attach vdisk
  The VHD will be mounted and the disk will be available to the windows installer
- exit
You can now click Install Now button. Accept the Licenses agreements. On the next screen select Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).
At this point, Windows Setup will prompt you to choose where you want to install Windows 8.1 and you can now select your virtual drive, which will be designated as Unallocated Space and be the size that you specified. As you can see in the screenshot below, I have selected my 10GB VHD. Keep in mind that when you select the VHD, you’ll see a Warning message that says that Windows cannot be installed to this disk. Just ignore it and click Next to continue.
When the installation is complete, Windows Setup will reboot your system one final time and you will then see the new Windows 8.1 style dual boot screen shown as below. As you can see, Windows 8.1 will automatically launch in 30 seconds if you don’t choose Windows 7.

That’s it!

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 8

Tags: dual boot windows 7 and 8 vhd dual boot windows 8 vhd install windows 8 into vhd install windows 8 on vhd

How to Troubleshoot Windows Login Problems

September 8th, 2014 by Admin

Every time you start Windows you’ll be prompted to enter the username and password for logging into your account. Though this is such a routine part of the day that is is easy to not even think about the logon process, things can go wrong for various reasons. In this article we’ll discuss how to troubleshoot the most common Windows login problems you might run into.

Issue 1: I tried to log on, but I keep getting a message telling me that the user name or password is incorrect, or Windows account is locked out

Here are several possible solutions to fix this problem.

Caps Lock might be on
Passwords in Windows are case-sensitive, which means that every time you type your password, you have to capitalize each letter in exactly the same way that you did when you first created it. If you have accidentally pressed Caps Lock, then you’re inadvertently typing your password in all capital letters. Make sure Caps Lock is off, and then type your password again.
NumLock key might be enabled
After enabling the NumLock feature, you’ll find a strange problem and you can’t type normal anymore. For example, when you type in “mjkluio”, your computer would type “0123456”. To turn off NumLock, please check out this article: 3 Methods to Disable NumLock on a Laptop Keyboard.
You might be typing the wrong password, or forgot your password
If you can’t remember your password, you need to reset your password, either with a password reset disk, an administrator account, or a third-party Windows password recovery tool such as PCUnlocker.
You might be trying to log on to the wrong user account
If you have more than one user account on the computer, make sure you’re logging on to the account that matches the password you’re using.
Windows account is locked out
If you’ve enabled the account lockout policy, the Windows account will become locked out after a number of invalid login attempts. The account lockout duration can range is from 1 through 99,999 minutes. A value of 0 specifies that the account will be locked out until an administrator explicitly unlocks it. If you need to access your locked account urgently, PCUnlocker can be of help!

Issue 2: My computer is part of a domain and I want to log on to a local user account, not my domain account

To log on to a local user account on your computer, you need to know the name of your computer and the user name for the account that you want to log on to. To log on to a local user account, follow these steps:

On the Windows login screen, click Switch User.
Click Other User.
In the user name field, type the name of your computer, a backslash (\), and the user name for the account that you want to log on to. For example: computer name\user name
Type your password, and then press Enter.

Issue 3: The user profile service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded

Corrupt user profiles are a frustratingly common problem with Windows. When you type your password and press Enter, you will typically see the error message “The User Profile Service failed the logon” and “The user profile cannot be loaded”, and you’ll be returned to the logon screen. Here is a quick registry trick to fix your corrupt user profile.

Issue 4: User account not showing up on login screen

User account is not showing up on Windows Welcome screen? If your account is disabled, it will disappear from your Windows login screen. If you’ve enabled your account but it still doesn’t show up at the login screen, please check out if this registry trick is applied on your system: Hide User Account from Welcome Screen in Windows 8/7/Vista/XP.

Issue 5: Keyboard and mouse stopped working at login screen

Sometimes when the computer boots to the Windows login screen, you might find that the keyboard or mouse stopped working and you can’t type anything. If you’ve ran into this issue, this article should be helpful for you: Keyboard Stop Working at Windows Login Screen.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Tags: can't log in to windows windows login error windows login issue windows login problem

How to Convert Your Downloaded Videos to Play on Sony TV

September 6th, 2014 by Admin

Have you downloaded some favorite videos from YouTube and want to play them on your Sony TV? What format should I convert the videos to? Though Sony TV like Bravia enables us to enjoy video files from a USB flash drive, it only supports videos in MPEG-1 / MPEG-2. Here is a simple way to convert all your downloaded videos (*.mp4, *.flv, *wmv, etc.) to Sony TV supported format!

How to Convert Your Downloaded Videos to Play on Sony TV?

Use a Windows PC to download the Video Converter Assist program. Double-clicked the downloaded setup file to install it.
Launch the Video Converter Assist program. Click on Add File button to import your downloaded videos which you want to play on Sony TV.
Under the Output settings section, choose the Video mode and select the required video format: MPEG-1/2 Video Files (*.mpg). Click on Advanced button.
In the popup dialog box choose one of the predefined presets from the drop-down list, and click OK. This predefined presets is designed to help you convert directly without going through the technicality of choosing and setting up video format.
Click on the … button to select a folder to save the converted video. Everything is done now! Just click the Convert button to begin converting your downloaded videos for playing on Sony TV. It will take a few minutes depending on the file size. Wait for the process to be done, and then you can copy the converted videos to a USB flash drive. Connect the USB drive to your Sony TV for enjoying your favorite videos.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Video Converter

Tags: convert video for sony tv convert video to tv format sony video converter

Keyboard Stop Working at Windows Login Screen

September 4th, 2014 by Admin

So I was going to start working earlier this morning. I started my computer as usual and at Windows login screen my keyboard stopped working. However, the keyboard did work after I entered into BIOS Setup, but as soon as Windows started loading the keyboard will stop working, even if I boot Windows into Safe Mode. After spending many frustrating hours to try the methods available on the net, I found this solution and it worked great!

Note: I recommend you to create a backup of your registry or create a System Restore point before you proceed! If your keyboard also doesn’t work in BIOS Setup, it may be physically damaged.

Get Around Windows Login Screen

To use this method, you should be able to access the Windows Registry in some way and change the registry keys. I managed to get into Windows by using a separate USB mouse and accessing the On-Screen Keyboard by which I could login and do the necessary registry changes. You can access the On-Screen Keyboard from Windows login screen:

On the log on screen in the bottom left-hand corner is an “Ease of Access” button, pictured below. Click on this button to access the Ease of Access panel on the log on screen.
On this panel, check the box for “Type without the keyboard (On-Screen Keyboard)” and then click on Apply.
In about five seconds, the on-screen keyboard will pop up and you will be able to use it to enter your password on the log on screen.

If both your keyboard and mouse stop working, try to boot your computer from a WinPE or Linux Live CD, the keyboard or mouse might just work fine and you can then proceed to the next step for changing registry keys.

Manually Fix Corrupted Registry Key

This problem may be caused by a Windows registry entry that has become corrupted. To use Registry Editor to fix the corrupted Registry entry, follow these steps:

Press the Windows logo key + R to open the Run dialog box. Type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
In the left panel, navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
In the right panel, you should now see a key UpperFilters which should contain at least one entry “kbdclass”. If there are more entries out there, double-click on the UpperFilters key and delete other entries except “kbdclass” (without quotes).
Restart Windows, and the problem should be fixed.

The problem in my situation was that there was also a keyboard driver installed from VMware. The VMware Keyboard Driver had an additional entry “vmkbd” in the UpperFilters key, but as I discovered the driver file that was needed (C:\Windows\system32\drivers\vmkbd.sys) was missing which in effect caused all the problems.

I hope this trick will be helpful to others in the same predicament.

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Posted in Others, Tips & Tricks

Tags: keyboard not working keyboard not working after login keyboard not working at login keyboard not working at login screen

Forgot Windows 8 Login Password on HP ProBook Notebook

September 3rd, 2014 by Admin

There are a number of different ways to recover a lost Windows password by using something like Ophcrack which lets you to crack the hashes with rainbow table. However, this is also the most difficult method and can be very time consuming depending on the length of your password.

Instead of recovering the original password, you can reset a forgotten Windows login password instantly. In this tutorial I’ll show you how to reset lost Windows 8 password on a brand new HP ProBook 430 G2 Notebook with PCUnlocker.

How to Reset Windows 8 Login Password on HP ProBook Notebook?

PCUnlocker is a bootable program that needs to run from a bootable CD or USB drive. After you’ve downloaded the PCUnlocker program, unzip the downloaded file and you’ll get an ISO image: pcunlocker.iso. Burn this ISO file to a blank CD or USB thumb drive with ISO2Disc.

Once you’ve created a PCUnlocker Live CD/USB drive, you can now bring it to unlock your HP ProBook notebook. Put the CD in the optical drive or plug the USB drive into the USB port of your HP ProBook laptop. When powering on the laptop, repeatedly press the Esc key to enter the Startup Menu, and follow the prompt to press F10 to enter the BIOS Setup.

After you’re in the BIOS Setup, navigate to System Configuration > Boot Options. Disable the Secure Boot option and change the Boot Mode from “UEFI Native (Without CSM)” to Legacy.

hp-probook-uefi

Save your changes and exit the BIOS. When your computer is restarting, repeatedly press the Esc key to access the Startup Menu again. Press F9 to enter Boot Device Options, from which you can choose to boot from a CD or USB drive.

Once booted into PCUnlocker Live CD/USB drive, the computer will temporarily load the WinPE OS and take you to the PCUnlocker program. From there you can see a list of local accounts for your Windows 8 installation. In my example, I use a Microsoft account as my computer’s login, and you can see my email address in the Description column of the “Boris” account.

Choose a local account and click on Reset Password button, it will unlock / reset your forgotten Windows 8 login password immediately. Here I choose the “Boris” account and the program assigns a new password (Password123) to my Microsoft account, that is because Windows 8 doesn’t accept a blank password for a Microsoft account.

The last step is restarting your HP ProBook notebook and removing the CD/USB drive. Enter into the BIOS Setup again and change the Boot Mode back to UEFI. After that, you can boot into Windows 8 with a blank password for a local account, or log in as Microsoft account with the new password. That’s it!

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 8

Tags: forgot hp probook password forgot windows 8 login password HP notebook password reset hp password reset hp probook password reset HP windows 8 password reset windows 8 login password reset

How to Bypass Windows 8.1 Pro Password on Microsoft Surface Pro 3

September 2nd, 2014 by Admin

If you forgot your password for logging into Microsoft Surface Pro 3, here is how you can bypass Windows 8.1 Pro password so you can sign into your local or Microsoft account again.

Just like Surface Pro or Pro 2, Surface Pro 3 also uses 64-bit UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware and it can boot into native UEFI mode only. This makes old-fashioned password cracking bootdisks obsolete, including Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. In this tutorial we’ll explain how to bypass Surface Pro 3 password with PCUnlocker, which supports both UEFI booting and password bypass for local/Microsoft account.

How to Bypass Windows 8.1 Pro Password on Microsoft Surface Pro 3?

To get PCUnlocker to work, you need to use a spare PC to download the Enterprise edition of PCUnlocker which comes as a self-extracting ZIP file. Unzip the downloaded file and you’ll get a CD image called pcunlocker.iso.

Burn the ISO image to your USB flash drive using the freeware ISO2Disc. Remember to choose the GPT partition style, because MBR-based bootdisk is unable to boot with UEFI mode.

Once you’ve create a PCUnlocker Live USB drive, insert it into the USB port of your Surface Pro 3 tablet. Make sure your tablet is powered off at this point. Press and hold the volume-down button (on the left side of your tablet), then press and release the Power button (on the top). When the Surface logo appears, release the volume-down button. Surface will boot from your USB drive.

After loading the Windows 8 PE from the USB drive, you’ll be taken to the PCUnlocker program. It shows you a list of local accounts that is extracted from your Windows 8.1 SAM registry hive. If you use an email account for signing into your tablet, you can see your email address in the “Description” column of the associated local account.

Select a local account and click on Reset Password button. It will bypass / reset your forgotten login password in no time. If you’ve chosen the local account associated with your email address, the program will assign a new password for your Microsoft account login (Note: this new password can be used to log on your tablet locally).

Now you’ve successfully bypassed Windows 8.1 Pro password on your Surface Pro 3. Restart the computer and disconnect the USB drive, you can then log on your Surface without a password!

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 8

Tags: bypass surface pro password bypass windows 8.1 pro password forgot surface pro 3 password surface pro 3 password reset