Archive for the ‘Windows Vista’ category

Parallels Desktop: Reset Lost Windows VM Password

May 16th, 2015 by Admin

If we forget the Admin password for a Windows virtual machine running on Parallels Desktop, is there an easy way to reset it? With PCUnlocker you can reset lost Windows password and regain access to your Parallels VM. This is considerably faster than destroying and rebuilding your VM.

This tutorial will take you step by step through resetting a Windows login password inside a Parallels Desktop virtual machine running on your Mac.

How to Reset Windows VM Password on Parallels Desktop?

Click here to download and save the PCUnlocker self-extracting Zip file on to your Mac. Once the download is complete, double-click on the .zip file and Archive Utility should appear and automatically extract your files. Open the folder you extracted to and you can see a CD image: pcunlocker.iso.
Start Parallels Desktop but do not start your virtual machine. Right-click on your Windows virtual machine and choose Configure.
In the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog, choose the Hardware tab and select CD/DVD 1. Make sure that Connected option is checked. From the “Connected to:” drop-down list, select “Choose an image file” and locate the pcunlocker.iso file you downloaded in step 1.
Go to Hardware tab and click Boot Order. Move CD/DVD to the first place in the Boot order.
Start your Windows virtual machine and it will boot directly to the PCUnlocker program which lists all user accounts on your Windows system.
Select a user whose password you would like to reset and click on “Reset Password” button to clear the user’s password. The program should now alert you that the password was cleared.
You can now power off your virtual machine. Be sure to go back to the Virtual Machine Configuration and change the boot order back to hard disk. Start the VM and you should be able to log into Windows without typing a password!

Besides resetting Parallels Desktop password, you can also use PCUnlocker to bypass the passwords for Windows virtual machines running in Parallels Workstation, VMware Workstation, VirtualBox, Hyper-V, Virtual PC, ESX/ESXi, and other virtualization software.

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

Tags: parallels desktop password reset parallels password reset parallels windows password reset parallels vm password

How to Bypass Windows 8, 7 and Vista Password without A Reset Disk

May 12th, 2015 by Admin

A password reset disk is essentially a USB drive that contains a small file: userkey.psw, which can be used to change your password from Windows logon screen. But the catch is that you have to create a password reset disk while you’re logged in. If you’ve already forgotten your password, it’s too late.

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to bypass Windows 8, 7 and Vista password with a bootable media – PCUnlocker Live CD, which can be created on a spare computer after you forgot Windows password. PCUnlocker can be used to reset the password of any user on any Windows machine, while a password reset disk can only reset the password of the account for which it was created.

How to Bypass Windows 8, 7 and Vista Password without A Reset Disk?

If you don’t have a PCUnlocker Live CD, you can create it on any Windows computer that you still have full access to. Download the CD image of PCUnlocker and burn it to a blank CD (or USB thumb drive) with the freeware ISO2Disc.

Put the PCUnlocker Live CD in the CD drive of your locked computer. Once booted to the PCUnlocker program, it will detect all the partitions which contain a valid Windows installation.

Select the SAM file for the Windows installation whose password you need to bypass, it will list all the user accounts stored in your selected SAM file. If you’re running PCUnlocker on a dual-bot machine, there should be two SAM files and make sure you choose the desired one.

Choose a user account and click on “Reset Password”. This program will wipe the password, enable/unlock the account, and promote it to an Administrator if it’s a standard or limited account.

Take the CD out of the CD drive and reboot the computer. You can then log back into Windows without typing password. So this is how you can bypass the password for any version of Windows.

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

Tags: bypass windows 7 password bypass windows 8 password password reset disk reset windows 7 password without reset disk reset windows 8 password without reset disk windows 7 password bypass windows password reset disk

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 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

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

How to Hide A Drive / Partition from Windows Explorer

December 24th, 2014 by Admin

Do you have some private files that you want to hide from your children? Here is a registry trick to hide a drive or partition in Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP, so it cannot be accessed from Windows Explorer by inexperienced users.

The method is not foolproof though, and users can still access the contents of the hidden drive from Command Prompt or Disk Management. If you have some confidential or sensitive data on a local disk and want to lock / protect it securely, I recommend you use the Protect My Folder application.

How to Hide A Drive / Partition from Windows Explorer?

Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. In the right pane, right-click the blank area and choose New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name the newly-created DWORD as NoDrives and then double-click it. In the pop-up window, choose Decimal, enter a proper number for hiding your desired partition. In my example, I want to hide the network drive Z:, so I type in the value 33554432.

Here’s a list of the values (decimal number) you’ll want to enter for different drive letters:
- A: 1
- B: 2
- C: 4
- D: 8
- E: 16
- F: 32
- G: 64
- H: 128
- I: 256
- J: 512
- K: 1024
- L: 2048
- M: 4096
- N: 8192
- O: 16384
- P: 32768
- Q: 65536
- R: 131072
- S: 262144
- T: 524288
- U: 1048576
- V: 2097152
- W: 4194304
- X: 8388608
- Y: 16777216
- Z: 33554432
- ALL: 67108863
But what to do if you want to hide more than one drive in Windows? Just add the values of the drives that you want to hide. For example, if you want to hide the drives E:, F: and A: you would enter 49 (16+32+1) in NoDrives as the decimal value.
Restart your computer and your target drive will disappear from Windows Explorer.

You can even hide the C: drive without corrupting your system. When you want to get your drives back, just set NoDrives to 0 or simply delete NoDrives altogether.

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

Tags: hide drive in windows explorer hide partition in windows