Archive for the ‘Windows 7’ category

How to Change Local or Domain Password Policy from Command Prompt

May 10th, 2015 by Admin

How to disable the password complexity policy for Windows Server Core installation? If your Windows system comes with a GUI interface, you change the password policy from within the Group Policy Editor, but the steps are still a bit complicated for a Windows domain controller.

In this tutorial we’ll show you a quick yet simple way to change local / domain password policy from the Command Prompt. This method works with all versions of Windows, including Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and Windows Server 2012 (R2) / 2008 (R2) / 2003.

How to Change Local/Domain Password Policy from Command Prompt?

If your computer is a domain controller, follow the steps below and you can change the default domain password policy. To change the local password policy on a domain controller, you must boot your server in Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) and then perform the steps below:

Open an elevated Command Prompt. If you’ve forgotten the local or domain administrator password and couldn’t log on, try the PCUnlocker bootdisk for bypassing the password.
Type the following command and hit Enter:
secedit.exe /export /cfg C:\secconfig.cfg

This will dump the local policy or domain policy for the system, including account policies, audit policies, and so on.
Open the C:\secconfig.cfg file with your text editor. For Windows Server Core, you can type notepad.exe in the Command Prompt. When Notepad launches, click the File -> Open menu to open C:\secconfig.cfg.
Now you can view and edit all of the relevant policies as shown below. In this example, we’ll disable the password complexity policy. So we replace PasswordComplexity = 1 to PasswordComplexity = 0, and change the value of MinimumPasswordLength to 0.
When done, save your changes. To load the edited file as your new policy configuration, use the following command:
secedit.exe /configure /db %windir%\securitynew.sdb /cfg C:\secconfig.cfg /areas SECURITYPOLICY
The new password policy will apply to all password changes and new password. After disabling the password complexity policy, you should be able to change Windows account password to whatever you like.

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

Tags: change domain password policy change password complexity policy change windows domain policy change windows local policy change windows password policy disable password complexity policy

Using Windows Firewall to Block A Program from Accessing The Internet

May 6th, 2015 by Admin

Have you ever installed a program that you only needed for offline use, but it kept on trying to connect to the Internet? Or need to stop a program from gathering your personal information and sending them out to the Internet? With Windows Firewall you can easily block any program of your choice from connecting to the Internet.

How to Block A Program from Accessing The Internet?

To get started we need to open up Windows Firewall. One quick way to do this is from the Control Panel. Just click the Windows Firewall icon.
On Windows Firewall window, click on the Advanced settings link.
Here you can see all your Firewall rules: Inbound or Outbound. When it comes down to it I think Outbound rules are usually enough for most applications. When Outbound connections are blocked, this means that the application can’t send any of your data to the Internet.
Right-click on Outbound Rules from the tree at the left, and then select “New Rule…”
Select the Program as the rule type and click Next.
Select the “This program path:” option and then click on Browse to locate the program which you want to stop from accessing the Internet.
Select the “Block the connection” option and click Next.
When comes to the Profile tab, select all of the available boxes: Domain, Private, and Public.
Give your new rule a name whatever you like. Click on Finish.
In the Name column, your newly blocked program will be listed. In the Action column, you’ll see that your newly created rule is set to Block.

Repeat the same steps to block as many programs as you want from accessing the Internet.

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

Tags: block internet access stop a program from accessing internet windows firewall

How to Disable Driver Signature Enforcement in Windows 10/8/7 64-Bit

May 4th, 2015 by Admin

In 64-bit operating systems starting with Windows Vista, Windows will load a kernel-mode driver only if the driver is signed. It was designed to prevent unsigned device drivers (or kernel modules in general) from being loaded and executed. After installing an unsigned device driver, it will always result in a blue screen of death during the startup process.

The problem is that many devices ship with unsigned drivers. Today, we’ll show you 2 methods to disable Driver Signature Enforcement in Windows 10, 8, 7 (64-bit) so you can then install / load unsigned drivers without problems.

Option 1: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement Completely

Open a Command Prompt with admin privileges. In Windows 10 or 8, just press the Windows key + X and then select “Command Prompt (Admin)”.
Type in the following command and press Enter.
bcdedit /set testsigning on

You should receive “The operation completed successfully” message. If you see a message saying the value is protected by Secure Boot policy, then you have to turn off Secure Boot in the UEFI/BIOS, before disabling Driver Signature Enforcement.
Close the Command Prompt and restart your computer. From now on, you will be able to install or run any unsigned driver without problems.
If you need to enable the Driver Signature Enforcement again, run this command instead:
bcdedit /set testsigning off

Option 2: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement Once

If you don’t want to use the method above to permanently disable Driver Signature Enforcement, here is a solution for you to temporary turn off Driver Signature Enforcement to install unsigned driver:

Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run box. Type shutdown /r /o and hit Enter.
Windows informs you that you are about to be signed off. Click Close.
Once your Computer has rebooted you will need to choose the Troubleshoot option.
Then head into Advanced options.
In the Advanced Options window, choose Startup Settings.
Click the Restart button on the Startup Settings screen to reboot your computer again.
After restart in Startup Settings windows, press the F7 key on your keyboard to select “Disable driver signature enforcement“.
Your PC will then reboot. Proceed to install your unsigned drivers. During the installation procedure, Windows will inform you that can’t verify the publisher of this driver software. Just ignore the warning message and choose “Install this driver software anyway” to complete the installation.

Keep in mind that after the next restart, Driver Signature Enforcement will be automatically enabled again to prevent new drivers from being installed, but Windows will keep using any unsigned drivers you’ve already installed.

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

Tags: disable Driver Signature Enforcement disable driver signature in windows enable Driver Signature Enforcement install unsigned drivers in windows turn off Driver Signature Enforcement

How to Create An Encrypted and Locked Folder in Windows

April 4th, 2015 by Admin

There are many folder locking programs out there that allow you to password protect and set different access rights to your files. But most of these programs don’t encrypt your files at all. Someone can easily bypass this protection to access your files by booting your PC with a Linux or WinPE Live CD, or removing your hard drive and connecting it to another PC.

If you’re a bit more conscious of privacy, encrypting your files is a better solution. Lock My Folders is an on-the-fly encryption software to lock and encrypt all kinds of pictures, videos, documents, files and folders. In this article we’ll explain how to use this program to create an encrypted and locked folder in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP.

Part 1: Set Password

Click here to download the Lock My Folders application and install it on your computer. The first time you launch the program, it will prompt you to set a master password that will be used to encrypt your files later on.

Enter a password that you can remember as you’ll need it to open and use the program next time.

Part 2: Create An Encrypted Folder

To create an encrypted folder, click on Add button from within the Lock My Folders program.

In the popup window, type your desired folder name and specify the location where you would like your new secure folder to be created. Click OK. You can create a secure folder in your local hard drive or USB flash drive.

Now your secure folder should have been created. You can then copy all your private photos, documents & videos into this folder, or create or edit a confidential file in the secure folder. All your files stored in this folder will be encrypted automatically on the fly.

Part 3: Manage Your Encrypted Folders

With the steps above you can create as many secure folders as you want. You can lock your secure folder after you finish working with it. Just right-click on the secure folder and select “Lock My Folder“.

When a secure folder is locked, everyone couldn’t access all files in it without knowing your password. You can also set your locked secure folders to be invisible from Windows Explorer and Command Prompt, by following these steps:

Start the Lock My Folders program.
Click on the Options icon from the top right corner of the main screen, and then select Settings.
Check the “Hide the secure folders when they are locked” box.

If you shutdown or restart your PC, all your secure folders will be locked out automatically.

The next time you need to open or access the secure folder, you need to unlock it firstly. Right-click on the secure folder and select “Unlock My Folder“.

The program will ask you to enter your password. Upon successfully verifying the password, the program will open the secure folder in Windows Explorer.

If you need to reinstall your operating system or transfer your secure folders to another machine, just backup the secure folders to an external storage device and you can then import them to the Lock My Folders program again. It’s that simple!

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

Tags: encrypt my folder folder encrypt folder lock hide folder password protect folder

How to Delete the Windows.old Folder in Windows 10/8/7

March 23rd, 2015 by Admin

When you perform a custom Windows installation or upgrade Windows to a newer version, the old Windows folder is renamed to Windows.old in case you’d like to revert the upgrade. Windows 8 or 10 users might also have seen the Windows.old folder after performing a PC refresh.

Windows.old contains not only your old Windows installation files, but also your old Documents, Settings and Programs. The folder is usually gigantic in size and can take up considerable space in your system partition. So if you are pretty sure that you no longer need any data from Windows.old then it would be a wise decision to delete it.

windows.old-folder

Unfortunately, you can’t remove the Windows.old folder by simply pressing the Delete key because your user account doesn’t have ownership of the folder. Here’s how to take ownership all files and subfolders in Windows.old, so you can then delete the whole folder to reclaim some space.

How to Delete the Windows.old Folder?

Download and install the freeware TakeOwnershipPro on your local computer.
Start the TakeOwnershipPro program and drag the C:\Windows.old folder to the program. Tick the “Include subfolders and files” box.
Click Take Ownership. The program will begin to take ownership of all files and subfolders in the Windows.old folder. It could take you one or two minutes, depending on number of files and folders it contains.
Once it is done, you can then delete the Windows.old folder without any permission issue.

It’s that simple. Deleting the Windows.old folder can save you quite a large amount of hard disk space and it will not affect the present state of the new OS.

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

Tags: delete windows.old folder remove windows.old folder take ownership of windows.old

Limit the Number of Failed Login Attempts in Windows 8 and 7

March 9th, 2015 by Admin

Have you ever worried that a hacker could figure out your login password through a password-guessing attack? Here’s how you can prevent this by temporarily locking your account when the wrong password is entered several times.

Account lockout threshold is basically a feature of Windows that allows you to lock your user account after a number of failed login attempts. In this article we’ll explain two methods of setting the account lockout threshold to limit the number of failed login attempts in Windows 8 and 7.

Tips: If your account is locked out permanently and couldn’t login with any user account, you can unlock your system with PCUnlocker Live CD.

Method 1: Using Local Group Policy Editor

To open the Local Group Policy Editor, press the Windows key + R and type gpedit.msc in the Run box.
In the left pane, navigate to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Account Policies, and click Account Lockout Policy.
In the right pane, you will see three policy settings, named Account lockout duration, Account lockout threshold, and Reset account lockout counter after.

Double-click Account lockout threshold and set the number of invalid login attempts you like between 0 and 999, click OK.
Windows will prompt you to set suggested settings for Account lockout duration and the length of time to Reset account lockout counter. You can either click OK to choose the default value or change it later.

Method 2: Using the Command Prompt

However, the above method will not work on Home editions of Windows as Group Policy Editor is only available in Ultimate or Pro version of Windows. Instead, you can change the account lockout threshold directly from Command Prompt. Here’s how:

First you need to open an elevated Command Prompt. In Windows 7, right-click on the Command Prompt in the Start Menu and select Run as Administrator. In Windows 10 or 8, just press the Windows key + X and select Command Prompt (Admin).
In the Command Prompt, run the command net accounts /lockoutthreshold:(0-999) and you can change the account lockout threshold. For example, I want the system to automatically lock out my account after the password is entered incorrectly 3 times, I would type in this command below and press Enter.
net accounts /lockoutthreshold:3
Now, you need to set how long the account will be locked when the password is entered incorrectly. In this example, we set the computer to lock for 30 minutes. But you can choose less or more (between 0 and 99999), depending on your needs.
net accounts /lockoutduration:30

If you set the account lockout duration to 0, then a locked out user account will be locked out until an administrator manually unlocks that locked-out account.
Once you’re finished, you can run the net accounts command to review your settings.

Conclusion

When the password is entered incorrectly a couple of times, you are restricted from further login attempts for a certain time period. After limiting the number of failed login attempts in Windows, it will prevent hackers from being able to guess your password by entering every possible password combinations continuously.

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

Tags: account lockout threshold windows account lockout windows failed login attempts

Disable Command Prompt Using Group Policy or Registry Trick

February 2nd, 2015 by Admin

Command Prompt is a built-in tool in Windows that is rarely used by the average user. It’s not so user-friendly but advanced computer users with malicious intent can use the Command Prompt to bypass most restrictions that are enforced on the Windows Explorer based GUI. In this post, we will explain how to disable Command Prompt in Windows 11/10/8/7.

Note: If you need to use the Command Prompt frequently, or run batch scripts or use the Terminal Services, disabling Command Prompt is not recommended.

Option 1: Disable Command Prompt Using Group Policy

Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run box, type gpedit.msc and hit Enter.
This will open the Local Group Policy Editor. Now, go to the following location in the left pane:
User Configuration/Administrative Templates/System

Make sure click on the System node rather than expanding it. In the right side pane you will see the “Prevent access to the command prompt” policy. Double-click it to modify.
In the pop-up window, select Enabled. If you also want to prevent running .bat or .cmd script files, select Yes from the dropdown under the Options section. Click Apply/OK and you are done.
You do not have to restart your computer for the setting to take effect. If you try to launch the Command Prompt, you’ll see the message “The command prompt has been disabled by your administrator.”

Option 2: Disable Command Prompt with Registry Trick

Unfortunately, the Local Group Policy (gpedit.msc) is not available in all editions of Windows. For those users running the Home edition of Windows, you can still disable Command Prompt with this registry tweak:

Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run box, type regedit and hit Enter.
This will open the Registry Editor. Navigate to the registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows. Right-click the Windows key in the left sidebar and choose New -> Key.
Name the newly-created as System. When the System key is selected, right-click the blank area in the right pane and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name the DWORD as DisableCMD and then give it a value 1 for disabling the Command Prompt and preventing batch files from running. If you want to disable the Command Prompt but allow batch files, set the value to 2. This change will take effect immediately.

To enable the Command Prompt again, just change the value to 0.

Conclusion

So this is how you can disable the Command Prompt in all versions of Windows. If you need a more secure method to lock the Command Prompt, you can use the third-party software – Protect My Folders, which allows you to protect c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe with a password.

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Posted in Others, Tips & Tricks, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 7, Windows 8

Tags: disable command prompt disable command prompt windows 11 prevent access to the command prompt

How to Reset Windows 7 to Factory Settings without Install Disc

January 23rd, 2015 by Admin

How do I reset or restore a Windows 7 PC to factory settings? As we all know, Windows 7 doesn’t have the built-in refresh and reset options like Windows 8/8.1 and you have no other way to restore your computer to factory settings unless you have a manufacturer-provided install media or recovery disc.

Many computer manufacturers are pre-installing Windows without giving you the actual installation media to go with it. Instead, they create a hidden recovery partition for users to perform a factory reset. If your hard drive has such a recovery partition, you can then reset your Windows 7 system to factory settings without needing any discs or external drives. Here’s how.

How to Reset Windows 7 to Factory Settings without Install Disc?

Click Start, then choose Control Panel. Click System and Security.
Next choose Backup and Restore.
In the Backup and Restore window, click on the Recover system settings or your computer link.
Next, choose Advanced recovery methods.
Now you’ll be presented with two options: “Restore files from a system image backup” and “Return Your Computer to Factory Condition“. Click on “Return Your Computer to Factory Condition”.

Note: If your computer doesn’t have a recovery partition, then the factory reset option is not available and you’ll see the “Reinstall Windows (requires Windows installation disc)” option instead.
Select to either create a Back up now, or to Skip it and continue the factory reset without backing up any of your current files.
Click the Restart button to reboot your computer and to start the factory reset process.

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Posted in Others, Tips & Tricks, Windows 7

Tags: reset windows 7 to factory settings restore windows 7 to factory settings

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 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