Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ category

Bypass Windows Password with Freeware UBCD4Win

January 20th, 2015 by Admin

Locked out of a computer but need to be able to log in as a local admin? What you need to do is set up a UBCD4Win (also known as Ultimate Boot CD for Windows) live CD, boot up the computer with it and run the NTPWEdit tool to clear forgotten Windows password.

UBCD4Win is based on BartPE, and it requires the Windows XP CD (with SP1 or SP2). This article we’ll walk through the steps required to create a UBCD4Win bootable CD and then use it to bypass Windows administrator password.

Note: UBCD4Win is a freeware so don’t expect it to work with domain controllers. If you want to find a more powerful yet easy-to-use password recovery software, try the PCUnlocker Live CD.

Part 1: Create A UBCD4Win Bootable CD

Download the freeware UBCD4Win from its official website. The download is pretty big (about 269Mb), so expect to wait a while if your network connection is slow.
After installing, start the UBCD4Win (UBCD4WinBuilder.exe) program. Point the “Source” path to your Windows XP setup CD or Windows 2003 installation CD. However, Vista is not yet supported as a source.
Insert a blank CD, select “Burn to CD/DVD” and click Build. The whole process will take a little while.

Part 2: Bypass Windows Admin Password

Once the CD has been created, go to the BIOS and make sure your CD-ROM is set as the first boot device. Start up the computer with UBCD4Win in the CD-ROM and you will have some boot options. Choose the “Launch The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows” option.
It will take a few minutes to load fully, but when it does you should see a Windows XP like interface. Once there, go to Start > Programs > Password Tools > NTPWEdit.
Once the utility is open, you need to click the (Re)open button to open up the SAM file which should show you the list of local system accounts for your Windows installation. Select the Administrator account and click on Change Password.
Type your new password twice, or leave the password fields blank if you want to clear the password. Click OK.
Restart the computer, remove the UBCD4Win Live CD from the drive, and you should be able to log into Windows administrator account with the new password you’ve set.

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Posted in Free Software, Tips & Tricks

Tags: bypass windows password how to use ubcd4win ubcd4win ubcd4win password reset Ultimate Boot CD for Windows

Forgot Windows XP Domain Password and Can’t Login

January 16th, 2015 by Admin

Locked out of Windows XP domain machine and can’t log into the domain user account? Need to gain access to your computer after the domain controller is no longer available or you forgot the password?

forgot-xp-domain-password

In this article we’ll explain how to reset forgotten Windows XP password and then remove your computer from a domain that no longer exists, or which you no longer have access.

Part 1: Reset Forgotten Windows XP Password

Before removing your computer from the domain you need to first log in as a local administrator. If you’ve forgotten your password, you can reset it easily with the PCUnlocker program. Here’s how:

Use a spare PC to download the PCUnlocker ISO image and burn it to a CD or USB flash drive using the ISO2Disc program.
Boot your locked Windows XP machine from PCUnlocker Live CD/USB drive.
Once the PCUnlocker program starts, you can see a list of local accounts for your Windows XP system.
Choose the built-in Administrator account and click on Reset Password button. It will remove the local administrator password immediately.

Part 2: Remove Windows XP from Domain

Once you’ve reset the local administrator password, you can then log on your computer locally and remove Windows XP from a non-existent domain, by following the steps below:

Boot your Windows XP machine as usual. When you get to the Welcome screen, press Ctrl + Alt + Del twice to get the classic Windows logon box.
Type Administrator in User name box, and leave the password box empty as you’ve reset the local administrator password. Make sure that in the Log on to field, you have pulled down to “this computer” rather than a domain. Click OK and you should be able to log on successfully.
After getting into Windows XP, right-click the My Computer icon on your desktop and select Properties.
In the System Properties window, go to the Computer Name tab and click the Change button.
In the Member of section, choose Workgroup and then type something, anything in the Workgroup field.
When you click OK, you will be prompted to provide the login credentials for an account with permission to remove this computer from domain. Just type Administrator in User name box, and leave the password box empty. Click OK.
Reboot your computer for the change to take effect. Now you’ve successfully removed Windows XP from a domain.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows XP

Tags: forgot windows xp domain password remove windows xp from domain reset windows xp domain password

How to Reset Forgotten Windows Password with Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD)

January 15th, 2015 by Admin

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to crack and reset Windows password when you forget it or want to unlock a computer with an unknown password. There are tons of recovery tools available to bypass password, but here I’ll use the freeware Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD).

Ultimate Boot CD is a Linux-based bootable disc with loads of useful software for repairing or fixing almost any Windows problem. The built-in chntpw utility could be used to wipe windows passwords and view/edit the registry. Here’s how.

Note: Ultimate Boot CD is a freeware so don’t expect it to work with domain controllers. If you want to find a more powerful yet easy-to-use password recovery software, try the PCUnlocker Live CD.

How to Reset Forgotten Windows Password with Ultimate Boot CD?

Before getting started, you need to download the Ultimate Boot CD (about 588Mb) from its official website, and then burn it to a CD. With the CD you can follow the steps below to reset forgotten Windows 8/7/Vista/XP password:

Boot your locked computer from Ultimate Boot CD. On the boot menu of Ultimate Boot CD, choose Parted Magic and press Enter.
The next screen you have to select your graphic settings. Just select option 1 and press Enter to use the default settings.
Once you are presented with the Parted Magic desktop, go to the left bottom corner of the screen and choose System Tools -> Change Windows Password.
A new small window will open. It lists all Windows partitions detected on your local hard drive. Click on the correct drive and it will start the chntpw utility in the console.
You will now be presented with the chntpw Main Interactive Menu. Type 1 and press Enter.
This will list out all of the Windows users on the system. Type the name of your desired user and press Enter.
You will now be given the option to blank out the password, as well as several other ways to promote or unlock the user account. Type 1 and press Enter, it will remove the existing password.
If you don’t want to reset other user password, type ! and press Enter.
Type q and hit Enter at this point to quit the User Edit Menu.
You will then be asked to write the registry hive to disk. Type y to confirm and save your changes.
Now you can reboot, and you can log into your Windows account with a blank password. Once you’re logged in, you can go to the Control Panel to change your password to something else — something you can remember.

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Posted in Free Software, Tips & Tricks, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Tags: free windows password reset reset Windows password with chntpw reset windows password with GParted Magic reset windows password with ubcd reset windows password with ultimate boot cd

How to Backup and Restore Outlook Mail Messages

January 11th, 2015 by Admin

When you use Microsoft Outlook as your email client, your email messages, contacts, appointments, task, notes are automatically saved in a personal storage folder (also known as a .pst file). Backing up your Outlook data is an important job especially if your computer crashes or if your want to transfer them to a new computer.

In this article, I explain how to easily backup Outlook mail messages and then restore (or transfer) them to another Windows-based computer.

Part 1: Backup Outlook Mail Messages

Click Start, and then click the Control Panel.
In the upper right corner of the Control Panel, click the pull-down menu and choose Small Icons. Double-click on Mail.
The Mail Setup window should be open now. Click on the the Data Files button.
In the Account settings window, select a mail account (in case of multiple ones) and click on the Open Folder button.
Windows Explorer will open to the Outlook .PST file that contains mail messages for your selected mail account.
With Outlook closed and the folder open, copy the .PST file to a safe location, such as an external hard drive. Better yet, make sure that your regular backup routine includes this folder.

Part 2: Restore Outlook Mail Messages

Here is how to import the .PST file back into Outlook to gain access to your mail messages again.

In Outlook application, click the File menu. Navigate to the Open sub-menu, then click Outlook Data File.
Navigate to wherever your .PST file is located. Select the PST file you backed up previously and click OK.
Once restored, you’ll be able to browse and view all items including mail messages inside your selected PST file.

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Posted in Others, Tips & Tricks

Tags: backup outlook email backup outlook mail message import outlook pst restore outlook mail

How to Lock Chrome with Password and Enable Guest Browsing

January 8th, 2015 by Admin

There are times when you have to share your PC with others. Of course, this also means that you’re allowing others to open your web browser to surf the Web. The main issue here is that you may not want them to have access to your bookmarks, browsing histories, or more scary, the saved passwords.

In Chrome, there is hidden secret feature called “Profile management system” that lets you password protected the browser and allow you to manage multiple accounts. One pre-made user account is for guests in specific. The guest account keeps no record of history or other personal data.

How to Lock Chrome with Password and Enable Guest Browsing?

Open your Chrome browser. Type chrome://flags in the address bar and press Enter. Press Ctrl+F and search for “Enable new profile management system”. Next select Enable from the drop-down menu.
Once changed, click on the Relaunch Now button appearing at the bottom of the screen so that the changes made will take effect. If you don’t see the relaunch button just close and re-open the browser.
Once you relaunch the Chrome browser, you will find a new button in the upper-right corner just before the minimize button which is labelled as first user. Now click on it, a small panel will open where you can log in to your Google account.
After signing into your Google account, you will notice at the title bar Chrome is displaying your account name instead of a icon. Click on your name to reveal your user card where you can select the Lock option to lock the Chrome browser. By locking the browser, you can prevent others from assessing your browsing history, bookmarks and other private data.
Once locked, the browser will vanish and the User Manager window will appear and others can still use the browser as a guest user by selecting the option Browse as Guest located at the bottom left corner.

Keep in mind that the User Manager window will remain active until you re-enter your password, even after restarting Chrome or rebooting the operating system.

Note: You must remember to lock your profile before closing Chrome because closing the browser won’t automatically lock your profile. Since Chrome reloads all the tabs when you unlock, don’t forget to save any of your unsaved work.

Be aware that this new Chrome profile management feature is not yet enabled by default and is still in the testing phase. This feature only locks the Chrome app itself and it doesn’t actually add an extra layer of protection to your browsing histories. The saved passwords in Chrome can always be revealed with the password tool such as Password Recovery Bundle.

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Posted in Others, Tips & Tricks

Tags: browse Chrome as a guest chrome guest browsing lock chrome profile lock chrome with password

Recover Stored Passwords from Chrome Canary, Chromium and Chrome

January 7th, 2015 by Admin

Have tons of passwords saved in the Chrome browser and need to recover them? Maybe you want to stop using Chrome, or you want to transfer the saved passwords to a new PC? With Password Recovery Bundle you can quickly recover cached logins and passwords to Web sites stored in Chrome, Chrome Canary and Chromium browsers.

How to Recover Stored Passwords from Chrome Canary, Chromium and Chrome?

Download and install Password Recovery Bundle on your computer. After installing, start the program and then click on Start Recovery.

As soon as you click on the Start Recovery button, you’ll see a drop-down list that displays all supported passwords. In order to recover Chrome saved passwords, select the Chrome Password option.

The program will automatically locate the browser profiles for Chrome Canary, Chromium and Chrome you have installed on your computer. Quickly decrypt and reveal cached login credentials, including the URL of the website, username / email address and password.

You can then select more than one password, copy them to the clipboard and save them to a text file.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks

Tags: Chrome Canary password recovery chrome saved password recovery Chromium password recovery Chromium saved passwords

How to Create A Password Reset Backdoor in Windows

January 5th, 2015 by Admin

A vulnerability has been discovered as a backdoor in all versions of Windows, including Windows 10, 8, 7 and Vista. A user can reset Windows password from an elevated Command Prompt on the Windows logon screen. Here’s how to plant a backdoor to your Windows system so that you can always reset a forgotten Windows password, or even create a new administrative account when you’re locked out.

Part 1: Create A Password Reset Backdoor in Windows

This method requires an administrator privilege to the computer in order to make changes to the system. Check out these step-by-step instructions:

First, make sure you are logged in as an administrator.
Download and install the freeware TakeOwnershipPro on your computer. Go to the folder c:\windows\system32. Right-click on sethc.exe and select TakeOwnershipPro from the context menu, this will grant full permissions of this file to your logged-on account. Proceed to take ownership of cmd.exe.
Make a backup copy of the sticky key application (c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe), and then replace sethc.exe with cmd.exe. If you haven’t taken ownership of sethc.exe and you might get the “access denied” error.
Now you have successfully installed a Windows password reset backdoor.

Part 2: Reset Windows Password through Backdoor

In the event that you forgot your Windows user password afterwards, you can simply reset the password through the backdoor you installed. Here is how:

When you are at the Windows login screen, press the SHIFT key continuously for 5 times and this will open a Command Prompt instead of the sticky key application.
At the Command Prompt, you can use the net user command to reset password of any existing account, or create a new user account.
- To reset the password, type the following command:
  net user Tom 123
  Replace Tom with the name of your Windows account, and 123 with your desired password.
- To create a new user account and add it to administrators group, run the following commands one by one:
  net user test 123 /add net localgroup administrators test /add
  
  These commands will create a test account and give it local administrative privileges.
Close the Command Prompt and you can then log into Windows with your new password, or newly-created user account. That’s it!

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Tags: reset windows password through backdoor windows backdoor login windows password reset backdoor

How to Reveal Facebook Passwords Stored by Common Web Browsers

January 4th, 2015 by Admin

Having your Web browser remember your Facebook password can be convenient, but sometimes you may forget the password and want to reveal cached password in your browser. With Password Recovery Bundle you can recover all types of passwords stored in most common web browsers, including Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Opera, Flock, SeaMonkey and Avant Browser. If your Facebook password is saved in your Web browser, you can reveal it in just a few mouse clicks!

How to Reveal Facebook Passwords Stored by Common Web Browsers?

Download and install Password Recovery Bundle on your computer. After installing, start the program and then click on Start Recovery.

As soon as you click on the Start Recovery button, you’ll see a drop-down list that displays all supported passwords. From there you need to choose the corresponding option for your Web browser. For example, you have to choose Chrome Password option if your Facebook password is remembered by Google Chrome.

The program will quickly decrypt and reveal all your website passwords along with Facebook login cached in your selected Web browser.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks

Tags: decrypt facebook password recover facebook password recover facebook password in web browser reveal facebook password

How to Recover Avant Browser Saved Password

December 31st, 2014 by Admin

Upon logging in to a particular website, Avant Browser will prompt you to save the password. With your password saved in the browser, the next time you visit the page, your username and password will be filled in automatically. However, this can also put you in trouble if you need to reinstall Windows but can’t remember the web logins.

Avant Browser stores all the web login passwords in a file named forms.dat at the following location:

Windows XP – C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Application Data\Avant Profiles\.default\formdata
Windows 8/7/Vista – C:\Users\<user_name>\Appdata\Roaming\Avant Profiles\.default\formdata

But the passwords are stored in an encrypted form and you don’t have direct access to the plaintext passwords. Here we’ll show you how to recover Avant Browser saved passwords with the Password Recovery Bundle program.

How to Recover Avant Browser Saved Password?

Download and install Password Recovery Bundle on your local machine.
Start the program and click on Start Recovery button.
Select the Avant Browser Password option from the supported password list.
The program will automatically decrypt the forms.dat file and list all your website URLs, usernames and passwords stored in the Avant Browser. That’s it!

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Tags: avant browser password recover avant password

How to Turn Off Drop Shadow Effect in Windows 10

December 26th, 2014 by Admin

If you have used Windows 10 for some time, you probably notice that the drop shadows on applications are really big and and suspiciously similar to the ones in Mac OS X.

show-shadows-under-window

The drop shadow effect for window borders looks cool but personally I don’t like it. Here’s how to turn off / remove the drop shadow effect in Windows 10.

How to Turn Off Drop Shadow Effect in Windows 10?

From Windows Explorer, click on Desktop shortcut in the left navigation pane. Right-click on This PC and select Properties.
When the System window opens, click on Advanced system settings.
Go to the Advanced tab and click the Settings button under the Performance section.
From here, under the Visual Effects tab, find and uncheck the box labeled “Show shadows under windows“.
When you click OK, it will immediately remove the drop shadow effect from window borders in Windows 10, and you’ll get a clean flat interface.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 10

Tags: remove drop shadow effect turn off drop shadow windows 10 drop shadow