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How to Change Office 2019 / 2016 Product Key with Ease

May 18th, 2019 by Admin

Your Office license has expired and need to replace it with a new product key? Need to change Office product key because it’s already activated by the maximum number of times? In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 easy ways to change Office 2019 / 2016 product key without re-installing.

Method 1: Change Office 2019 / 2016 Product Key from Office Application

  1. Open your Word or Excel application included in your Office 2019 / 2016 suite. Click on the File tab at the top-left.

  2. Select the Account tab. On the right side, click on the Change License button under the Office logo. If you’re using Office 2016, click on the Change Product Key link instead.

  3. You’ll be prompted to sign in to your Microsoft account which is linked with your new Office product key, or enter the product key instead.

Method 2: Change Office 2019 / 2016 Product Key with Command Prompt

  1. Open the Command Prompt as administrator. Navigate to Office installation folder by running this command:
    cd C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16

    If Office 2019 / 2016 32-bit is installed on 64-bit Windows, type this command instead:
    cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16

  2. Now, you can change your Office product key by running the command below:
    cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:new_product_key

  3. Finally, type the following command to immediately activate your copy of Office 2019 / 2016 installation:
    cscript ospp.vbs /act

The methods given above are the options to directly change the product key in your Office 2016 / 2019 application. Of course, you can also choose to remove & deactivate your current Office license first and then enter your new product key the next time you launch Office application.

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Free Ways to Optimize and Defrag Drives in Windows 10

May 16th, 2019 by Admin

As files are created or deleted over time, your disk will become fragmented, causing your system not to run as efficiently as it used to. To improve the performance of your PC, you have to defrag hard drive on a regular basis. Here are some free ways to optimize and defrag drives in Windows 10.

Method 1: Using the Built-in Optimization Drive tool

In File Explorer, right-click on the drive you want to defrag and select Properties from the context menu. When the Properties window appears, select the Tools tab and then click on Optimize.

A new window will appear with details about your hard disk drives. You can click on the Analyze button to tell you how fragmented the drives are, and then click on the Optimize button to begin the defragmentation.

Method 2: Optimize and Defrag Drives with Command Prompt

Open the Command Prompt as administrator, and then run the following command to optimize and defrag a specific drive in Windows 10:
defrag D: /O

Remember to replace D: with the actual drive you want to defrag. If you need to perform a boot-time defragmentation, try boot into Advanced Boot Options and access Command Prompt. From there you can run the above command to defrag your drives.

Method 3: Optimize and Defrag Drives with PowerShell

Open Windows PowerShell as administrator, and type the following command to analyze your drive. Look at the bottom of the output, it will advise whether or not you need to defrag the drive.
Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter D -Analyze -Verbose

If you decide to defrag a drive, execute this command:
Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter D -Defrag -Verbose

For Solid State Drive, defragging can cause performance issues and even reduce the life of the drive. You should use the trim command to erase unused blocks which are no longer in use:
Optimize-Volume -DriveLetter D -ReTrim -Verbose

Conclusion

There are also many free defragging tools (such as Auslogics Disk Defrag Free, Defraggler) that can make disk defragmentation easier and faster, but I think the built-in defrag tool in Windows 10 should be enough.

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How to Find Office 2016 / 2019 Product Key or Backup Activation

May 15th, 2019 by Admin

Lost your Office 2016 product key? How can I backup or transfer Office activation to another computer? If you need to reinstall Windows or Office but you’ve lost 25-character product key, here are all possible ways to find Office 2016 / 2019 product key, or backup your Office activation so you can restore it later.

Method 1: Find Office 2016 / 2019 Product Key from Microsoft Account

If you bought Office online (e.g. Microsoft Store) without physical disc, your product key is stored in your Microsoft online account or arrived in your email receipt. Just sign in to Services & subscriptions with your Microsoft account, locate the Office one-time purchase and then click on the “View product key” link.

The Office product key associated with your Microsoft account will appear there. You can write down the product key and keep it somewhere safe.

Method 2: Find Office 2016 / 2019 Product Key from Windows Registry

If Microsoft Office 2016 or 2019 came preinstalled on your computer or your product key sticker is totally unreadable, then try to decrypt and extract the product key from Windows registry using the third-party software like KeyFinder Plus.

After launching the KeyFinder Plus program, click on Start Recovery and then choose “From current system” from the drop-down menu. It will scan the registry for available activation keys for Windows, Office and other softwares installed on your computer.

Method 3: Backup and Restore Office 2016 / 2019 Activation

If you still couldn’t recover your Office product key, the last resort is to backup Office activation before reinstalling Windows or Office, so you can reactivate it later. To do this, open File Explorer and browse to the location: C:\Windows\System32\spp. Make a backup copy of all its folders / files and save them to an external USB drive for safe keeping.

After installing a fresh copy of the same edition of Office, you can activate it by restoring the backup files to its original location: C:\Windows\System32\spp. When pasting the files, you may get an error messages informing me that “The action can’t be completed because the folder or a file in it is open in another program“. To get around this problem, just close the Office application and run the following command to stop the sppsvc service:
net stop sppsvc

When the files are restored, re-launch your Office application and you’ll find the product is already activated. You can also use this method to transfer Office activation over to another computer. But remember to deactivate Office on your old PC before restoring the activation to your new PC.

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2 Ways to Export and Import Local Security Policy in Windows 10 / 8 / 7

May 13th, 2019 by Admin

How can I backup local security policy or transfer all policy settings from one system to another? In this tutorial we’ll show 2 simple ways to export and import local security policy in Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

Method 1: Export and Import Local Security Policy with GUI

The Local Security Policy Editor comes with the import / export feature, making it much easier to migrate or replicate the same local security policy settings across multiple computers.

Export:

  1. Press the Windows key + R together. When the Run dialog box shows up, type secpol.msc into it and hit Enter to open the Local Security Policy Editor.

  2. Right-click on Security Settings in the left-side pane, and you can then select “Export policy” from the context menu.

  3. Browse to the location where you want to save the security settings file (.INF), give it a name and click on Save.

  4. Open the .inf file with your text editor. As you can see, it contains all your local security policy, including your account lockout and password policy.

Import:

  1. Open the Local Security Policy Editor as before, right-click on Security Settings in the left pane and this time choose “Import policy“.

  2. Browse to the location where you saved the security settings file, select the INF file and click on Open.

  3. Reboot your computer to apply the new local security policy.

Method 2: Export and Import Local Security Policy with Command Prompt

To export the local security policy settings to a file (for example, security-policy.inf), open the Command Prompt as administrator and type the following:
secedit.exe /export /cfg D:\security-policy.inf

When you need to import the local security policy settings from the .INF file, simply run this command:
secedit.exe /configure /db %windir%\security\local.sdb /cfg D:\security-policy.inf

This method is very useful especially when you’re using the Home edition of Windows which has no Local Security Policy Editor.

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How to Hide Wireless Network Password in Windows 10

May 8th, 2019 by Admin

Having Windows remember your WiFi password is a great convenience, but this will also make your wireless password exposed to anyone who has physical access to your computer. Just open the Properties of a WiFi adapter and we can check the “Show characters” option to view the saved wireless network security key/password.

This might inadvertently leak your WiFi password. In this tutorial we’ll show you a simple way to hide wireless password from the WiFi adapter’s properties window in Windows 10.

How to Hide Wireless Network Password in Windows 10

  1. Open the Registry Editor. Copy and paste the below line into the address bar and then hit Enter.
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID\{86F80216-5DD6-4F43-953B-35EF40A35AEE}

  2. Right-click on the subkey named {86F80216-5DD6-4F43-953B-35EF40A35AEE} in the left-side pane and then select Permissions from the context menu.

  3. Click on Advanced button.

  4. By default TrustedInstaller is showing up as the owner, and we need to click the Change link.

  5. Type the name of your Administrators group and then click the “Check Names” button to validate the account name. When that’s done, click OK.

  6. Now, back to the Advanced Security Settings window. Just keep the permission entry for the “System” account and remove all other entries from the list. When done, click OK.

  7. From now on, you should no longer be able to view your wireless password from the WiFi network adapter’s Properties window.

    8. However, this won’t prevent users from recovering your wireless password using third-party password cracking software or other methods described in this article: 3 Ways to Find Saved Wi-Fi Passwords on Windows 10

Whenever you need to get the the “Show characters” option back to work again, just grant your account access to the registry key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID\{86F80216-5DD6-4F43-953B-35EF40A35AEE}. Follow these steps:

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID\{86F80216-5DD6-4F43-953B-35EF40A35AEE}. Right-click on the {86F80216-5DD6-4F43-953B-35EF40A35AEE} subkey and select Permissions.
  2. Click on Add button.

  3. Type Administrators in the “Enter the object names to select” text box, and click on Check Names button. If there is no error found, click OK.

  4. Back at the Permissions window, select the Administrators group and then click the Allow check box next to the “Full Control” permission.

  5. Click OK and close Registry Editor.

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3 Ways to Change Screen Buffer Size in Windows Command Prompt

May 6th, 2019 by Admin

How can I increase the screen buffer size of Command Prompt? The screen buffer size of Command Prompt is expressed in terms of a coordinate grid based on character cells:

  • The width is the number of characters that are displayed on a line in the Command Prompt window. The larger the width size, the more characters will show in the same row before wrapping.
  • The height is the number of lines that are stored in the memory.

In this tutorial we’ll show you 3 simple ways to permanently or temporarily change screen buffer size of Command Prompt in Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

Note: Screen buffer size set using Method 2 and Method 3 will only be temporary and as soon as you close the Command Prompt the changes will be lost.

Method 1: Permanently Change Screen Buffer Size of CMD in Properties

  1. Right-click on the title bar of the Command Prompt window, and then select Properties from the context menu.

  2. Go to the Layout tab. Under the “Screen Buffer Size” section you can set the desired width and height. If the screen buffer size is greater than the Window Size, then scroll bars will be displayed as required.

  3. Click OK to apply.

Method 2: Temporarily Change Screen Buffer Size of CMD Using Mode Command

  1. When the Command Prompt window is open, you can temporarily change the screen buffer size by typing this command:
    mode con:cols=Width_Size lines=Height_Size

    Substitute “Width_Size” with the value you want for the screen buffer width size and “Height_Size” with the value you want for the screen buffer height size.

  2. As soon as you hit Enter, the current Command Prompt window will resize to apply your new screen buffer size.

Method 3: Temporarily Change Screen Buffer Size of CMD Using Batch / Script

If you need to change screen buffer size from a Windows batch script, just add the following lines:

@echo off
cmd.exe /k "mode con:cols=100 lines=3000"

This will change screen buffer width to 100, and set the height size to 3000. You can make any adjustment you like for the width and height value.

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How to Find AD User Creation Date in Windows Server

April 29th, 2019 by Admin

How can I find out when a user account was created in Active Directory? Is there a way to list all AD users created in the last 30 days? It’s vitally important to monitor user account creations in order to reduce the risk of security breaches. In this tutorial we’ll show you different ways to find when a specific AD user was created, and list all recently created accounts in Active Directory.

Part 1: Find the Creation Date of Specific AD User

  1. In Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in, click on the View menu and select Advanced Features.

  2. Expand the domain and choose Users in the left-hand pane, you’ll see a list of AD users. Right-click on the account for which you want to find out the creation date, and select Properties.

  3. Go to the Object tab and you can view the date and time when the account has been created.

Additionally, you can also find out the user account creation date using PowerShell. Just type the following command and hit Enter.
Get-ADUser your_username -Properties whenCreated

Part 2: List All Recently Created Accounts in Active Directory

When you need to find a list of users created in Active Directory in the last 30 days, just open PowerShell with elevated privileges and execute the below commands:

$DateCutOff = (Get-Date).AddDays(-30)
Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties whenCreated | where {$_.whenCreated -gt $DateCufOff} | FT Name, whenCreated

The first command uses the AddDays method to minus 30 days from the current date, while the second command pulls only accounts created after a certain date stored in $DateCutOff.

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How to Enable Quick Removal Policy for USB Drives in Windows 10 / 8 / 7

April 28th, 2019 by Admin

Do you really need to safely eject a USB drive before pulling it out of your computer? Windows has two different policies you can select for each individual USB drive:

  • Quick removal – This will disable write caching on the USB device, and your data will be written to physical drive in real-time. So you will be able to disconnect your USB drive even without using the “Safely Remove Hardware” option.
  • Better performance – This will cache the write operations to optimize performance and your data will be written to physical drive at a later time. Before unplugging your USB drive, you have to click the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon appears in the system tray to tell Windows to write all the cached data to disk.

If you don’t bother with safely removing USB devices before unplugging them, follow this tutorial to enable Quick Removal policy for USB drives in Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

How to Change Removal Policy for USB Drives in Windows

  1. To get started, you need to open the Disk Management tool. If you’re running Windows 10, just hit the Windows key + X together and you can then select “Disk Management” from the menu.

  2. Find your USB drive in the lower section of the Disk Management window, right-click its name and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

  3. Switch to the Policies tab and you can change the removal policy to Quick removal. Click OK to save your change. Note that This change only applies to this specific USB device.

  4. That’s it! Whenever the activity light on your USB drive is no longer blinking, you can directly remove the device without bothering to click the Safely Remove Hardware notification icon.

Updates: In earlier versions of Windows the default removal policy applied to USB drives was Better Performance. With the release of Windows 10 version 1809, Microsoft has changed its default policy to Quick Removal.

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How to Change Local / Domain Admin Password Using Windows PowerShell

April 25th, 2019 by Admin

Need to write a PowerShell script for changing a local account’s password? We’ve covered various ways of resetting Windows password in the past, but this tutorial will teach you how to change the password of either local account or domain account using Windows PowerShell.

How to Change Local / Domain Admin Password Using PowerShell

  1. Open Windows PowerShell as Administrator.

  2. First, you have to convert your new password to encrypted string by running the following command. Be sure to replace P@ssw0rd with the new password you want to set for your account.

    $NewPassword = ConvertTo-SecureString "P@ssw0rd" -AsPlainText -Force

  3. Next, type the following command to change your local account password. Substitute Tom in the command below with the actual user name of the local account that you want to change the password of.
    Set-LocalUser -Name Tom -Password $NewPassword

    If you need to change domain user password, run the following command instead:
    Set-ADAccountPassword Tom -NewPassword $NewPassword –Reset

  4. After completing the above steps, reboot your computer and you can log in to your local / domain account with the new password.

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