How to Hack Windows Administrator Password

This hack will show you how to reset Windows administrator password (for Win 2000, XP, Vista and Win 7) at times when you forget it or when you want to gain access to a computer for which you do not know the password.

Most of us have experienced a situation where in we need to gain access to a computer which is password protected or at times we may forget the administrator password without which it becomes impossible to login to the computer. So here is an excellent hack using which you can reset the password or make the password empty (remove the password) so that you can gain administrator access to the computer. You can do this with a small tool called  Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. This utility works offline, that means you need to shut down your computer and boot off your using a floppy disk, CD or USB device (such as pen drive). The tool has the following features.

• You do not need to know the old password to set a new one
• Will detect and offer to unlock locked or disabled out user accounts!
• There is also a registry editor and other registry utilities that works under linux/unix, and can be used for other things than password editing.

 

How it works?

 

Most Windows operating systems stores the login passwords and other encrypted passwords in a file called sam (Security Accounts Manager). This file can be usually found in \windows\system32\config. This file is a part of Windows registry and remains inaccessible as long as the OS is active. Hence it is necessary that you need to boot off your computer and access this sam file via boot. This tool intelligently gains access to this file and will reset/remove the password associated with administrator or any other account.

The download link for both CD and floppy drives along with the complete instructions is given below

Offline NT Password & Reg Editor Download

It is recommended that you download the CD version of the tool since floppy drive is outdated and doesn’t exist in today’s computer. Once you download you’ll get a bootable image which you need to burn it onto your CD. Now boot your computer from this CD and follow the screen instructions to reset the password.

 

Another simple way to reset non-administrator account passwords

 

Here is another simple way through which you can reset the password of any non-administrator accounts. The only requirement for this is that you need to have administrator privileges. Here is a step-by-step instruction to accomplish this task.

1. Open the command prompt (Start->Run->type cmd->Enter)

2. Now type net user and hit Enter

3. Now the system will show you a list of user accounts on the computer. Say for example you need to reset the password of the account by name John, then do as follows

4. Type net user John * and hit Enter. Now the system will ask you to enter the new password for the account. That’s it. Now you’ve successfully reset the password for John without knowing his old password.

So in this way you can reset the password of any Windows account at times when you forget it so that you need not re-install your OS for any reason. I hope this helps.

How to Customize Start Menu Button in Windows 7

Have you ever wondered how to customize the start menu button in Windows 7? Well it is possible to spice up your copy of Windows 7 by giving a new look to the start menu button. Here is a detailed tutorial on how to do it. The following images shows a preview of how your start menu would look like before and after the customization process is done.

 

Default Start Menu Button

 

Customized Start Menu Button

 

Tools That You Need:

1. Resource Hacker

2. Custom Start Menu icons (images). It mush be of the size 54×162 with a .bmp extension. which looks something as follows

They must be in the following order:

1st Image - When the button is not in use
2nd Image - When the mouse pointer is over the button
3rd Image - When the button is clicked

I have created a few customized buttons which are ready to use. You can download them from the following link.

Start Menu Buttons Download

 

Once you have all those resources ready, you can start the customization process as follows…

1. Take the ownership of the file “explorer.exe“ which is located in the Windows Folder (Most likely inC:\Windows).

2. Open the Resource Hacker Tool.

3. Go to File menu and click on Open. Now load the file “explorer.exe” into the Resource Hacker.

4. Expand Bitmap branch in the left pane.

5. Now expand 6801 option, right-click on 1033 and select Replace Resource option.

6. A new window appears. Click on Open file with new bitmap button.

7. Navigate to the customized (.bmp) image, open it and click on Replace button.

8.  Repeat steps 4 to 7 above for the options 6805 and 6809 as well.

9. Now click on Save option (File->Save). Resource Hacker will automatically create a backup file calledexplorer_original.exe so that you can restore it in the future if needed.

10. Log Off and Log On to see the changes in effect.

NOTE: If you are running 64-bit edition of Windows 7, then you need to use Resource Hacker version 3.5.2 beta which is 64-bit compatible. It is available from the same link provided above.

I hope you enjoy this trick. Pass your comments and share your experience.

Dexpot [Download of the Day]

In essence nothing more than a desktop manager that Mac OSX and Linux users are familiar with, Dexpot provides Windows users similar functionality for their operating systems (version 1.5 supports Win 2K and above, while 1.4 supported even Windows 95), which isn’t present even in Windows 7. Until it arrives, those Windows users looking to simplify their interface and organise their workflow have an option: Dexpot.

Absolutely free for private use, Dexpot allows users to create additional workspaces, by allowing the creation of up to 20 separate desktops. The software is extremely flexible, providing many customization options including separate wallpapers, screen resolutions, start-ups macros, and icons for each workspace, as well as user-defined hotkeys for quick access to functions and workspaces.

Those of you who’ve used desktop/workspace managers before will probably not require any explanation as to the uses of such a manager, but here is one anyways. By allowing you to create more than one workspace or desktop, Dexpot allows users to compartmentalize/organize their work and applications onto multiple desktops, and also reduce the clutter. For example, Desktop 1 (these can also be renamed) can be for your email and web-browsing, while Desktop 2 can be for productivity such as spreadsheets and word processors, Desktop 3 solely for entertainment and media, while Desktop 4 is for games, and so on. In fact, you can even create rules for each application, so that even if you open one in the wrong (according to your own categorization) desktop, it will automatically be transferred to the correct/assigned one.
 

Tray Icon Menu

Dexpot, with its numerous customization options and super simple access interface, helps users streamline their workflow while working with numerous windows and applications, with easy switching and auto-organizatio. While it does not actually help the computer in its application process management, the tool is very light on RAM and processor usage, working flawlessly on our Windows 7 (in case you were wondering, version 1.5 onwards offers support for 64-bit operating systems with it), 2GB DDR3 RAM, and 3.1GHz quad-core machine. In fact, with its speed of operation and interesting GUI, it looks like it was born to serve Windows 7 users and Aero.

Settings - click to enlarge

General	Appearance	Components
Controls	Switching Desktops	Plugins & Extras

The interface is ridiculously easy, and supports various styles of use. If you prefer to use your mouse, all the functions can be accessed with simple right-clicks on the taskbar and tray icon, as well as the useful context menus for every window. You can move and copy windows (applications or explorer windows) from one desktop to another, or let it do Dextop do it automatically for you with preset rules. Dextop also supports plugins that can enhance its functionality, such as the Taskbar Pager, which arranges all your open desktops in a tabular format on your taskbar, for easy one-click access. It is similar to Windows 7 Desktop Preview, where a mouse-over one of the desktops will show it temporarily. It will also flash the relevant desktop button if any application in the minimized desktop wants your attention.

Click to enlarge

4 - desktops	SevenDex
Taskbar Pager	Configure Desktops

SevenDex is another plugin that places a taskbar button on each desktop, and when puts their mouse over it, displays all the open desktops at the moment. DexCube is a GUI plugin, which simply adds cube-spinning graphic transitions between desktops. Slideshow will switch between desktops in user-defined order and intervals, while Wallpaper Clock allows the user to set up a different time for each desktop. 

You can download Dextop from here (builder's page) or here (direct download link), and you can browse all our previous Download of the Day software here. 

How To Make Windows 7 Faster and Responsive by 2X

These days most of the computer system’s come up with loads of ram installed. 2GB is the minimum memory which people are currently asking for. Windows 7 is a much faster and stable operatingsystem that the previous ones. But windows will use only a definite amount of memory even if we have much more than that. Whats the remaining memory is kept as such? Keeping the programs in the memory will make the sytem much more faster and responsive as there wont be a need to search the data in the slow hard drive. Windows 7 doesn’t allow to set an custom size for the file system cache. One of our readers suggested a great tip to make windows 7 use more ram and thereby making your system much more faster and responsive than before. This tweak will also work for Windows Vista. So here’s how we apply the tweak to in windows 7.

Click Start and type in “cmd” and you will see the command prompt icon.

Right Click the cmd icon and choose “Run as Administrator“.

Now in the command prompt windows type in the following command.

fsutil behavior set memoryusage 2

Now restart windows 7.

Using the following query will give you the current value.

fsutil behavior query memoryusage

Always make sure you have sufficient amount of ram 2GB or more before performing this tweak.

Most Useful Windows 7 Registry Tweaks for Speeding Up Windows 7

Every windows user will be using a lot of tweaks these days for speeding up their system. I am sure all will be waiting for the Registry tweaks for the newly born Windows 7 operating system. Here are some registry tweaks that can be safely applied after its installation or later. I am sure these tweaks can speed up Windows 7.
First of all i will tell what all changes will be made after applying the tweaks.

• Hanged programs will be terminated quickly.ie. Automatically it will end tasks of programs that are taking longer to respond.
• Menus will be shown very faster. When you pause on the main menus the sub menus will be shown up very fast than normal.
• You will get an option ” Take Ownership” when you right click on files or folders. This will become handy when you want to replace system files while doing customization.
• Make windows not to search for a program that no longer exist when you click on the shortcut there by saving your valuable time.
• Adds “Copy To” and “Move To” options in the right click context menu of Windows 7. So from now on copying and moving files from one place to another will be more easier than before.
• Directly opens up the Files list when you choose “Open With” option there by deactivating the ” search onInternet ” option.
• Speeds up the navigation in Windows Explorer by disabling searching for network printers and scheduled tasks on network.
• Disables the annoying “low disk space” message notification in your system tray.

Download Registry Tweaks For Windows 7

Restart your system after applying these registry tweaks to take effect. You will also get a small speed increase in Windows 7